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/