Since I think we haven't been having enough fun lately on OSNews, I decided it's time we do something fun for a change. We all have our little pet annoyances when it comes to other people's comments. Fixed expressions or comment styles that annoy the living daylights out of you. Here are mine.
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Member since:2006-01-02
Yes, it is true that the 't' was originally there, or else the spelling wouldn't have had it in the first place. However, it was uniformly lost as part of a general sound change that simplified consonant clusters ending in obstruents (I gave some examples in another post). So the new state of things became that the 't' was not pronounced. Then, some people started deciding that it should be pronounced again since it was retained in spelling. This is an artificial change. I suppose you could deem it legitimate, but I would put it in the same category as "between you and I" -- an affected pronunciation meant to make the speaker sound more important and educated.
As for "than" vs. "then" -- I highly doubt you do actually distinguish them in all contexts, you just think you do (people tend to assume they pronounce things certain ways because of the spelling or the phonology of the word, ignoring the fact that what actually comes out is sometimes quite different -- for example, the 'p' in "spit" and the 'b' in "bit" are pronounced exactly the same in American English and some dialects of British English and elsewhere, yet I imagine that most people would argue that point with me quite strongly -- until I pulled out sound analysis software which clearly shows that they are the same (and if you remove the 's' from the beginning of the recording, you can clearly *hear* it too)).
Certainly "than" can be stressed, in which case, for those people who have adopted the non-historical pronunciation, it would, in fact, sound different from "then". I myself would say "than" to rhyme with "tan" in those few contexts where it is stressed. But the truth is that that particular pronunciation is, in origin, a spelling one. The fact that even now, so many people still spell it "then" when they aren't being careful (or don't know better) should be evidence enough that "than" and "then" are generally pronounced the *same* and always have been.
Member since:2005-10-19
Note the difference in the strong pronounciation phonetics between these two entries in a UK dictionary:
THAN: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=82226&dict=CALD
THEN: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=82339&dict=CALD
You may highly doubt it all you wish :-)
Member since:
2005-10-19
You seem to be suffering from the assumption that English follows some kind of logic when it comes to pronounciation.
The vocalisation of the 't' in all of the examples you gave were lost over time, rather than recently gained. It's just that in a large group of English accents, it was not lost. It is therefore not wrong, just different. In fact it could be argued that pronouncing the 't' is more correct as it is closer to the original.
This statement could not be more wrong. I have to force myself to imagine a sentence where these words are pronounced the same, and no native speaker of either the UK or Australia would ever do so.
The fact that they are both born of the same root is irrelevant. Languages evolve, and they are now two separate words with separate meanings.