Edmond,
I have also noticed, at least in some regions of the U. S., that the "th" in
"bequeath", "booth", and "with" have lost their voice.  I think that the
loss of voice in the common preposition may come in stages where some people
let it vary depending on whether the next word begins with a vowel or not.
Bruce

On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 3:44 AM, Brett Reynolds <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> On 2010-01-30, at 2:33 AM, Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> wrote:
>
> > I have come to notice a common preference in England for the spelling
> > 'loath' over 'loth' (meaning 'disinclined').
>
> The preference is international and historical. In fact, in the Corpus of
> Current American English, 'loath' is about 50 times more common than 'loth'
> where in the British National Corpus, it's only about five times more
> common.
>
> > Are 'loth' and 'loath' (as the adjective
> > meaning 'disinclined') pronounced unvoiced in America?
>
> Merriam-Webster's online dictionary gives both voice and unvoiced with
> voiceless listed first.
>
> Best,
> Brett
>
> -----------------------
> Brett Reynolds
> English Language Centre
> Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
> Toronto, Ontario, Canada
> [log in to unmask]
>
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