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] > > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface > at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html > and select "Join or leave the list" > > Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ > To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/