Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 June 28

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June 28

Plurals of -ooth words

Booths, youths, truths, ... probably others.

Some people pronounce these plurals with a /ðz/ rather than a /θs/, as if they were written boothes, youthes, truthes. Like smoothes.

How prevalent is this? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:59, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Well booth is usually pronounced /buːð/ here in northern England (in fact that used to be the most common pronunciation in the UK) so naturally the plural is with /ðz/. We have a northern supermarket called Booths ("the northern Waitrose") and I never hear it pronounced with /θs/. I use /ðz/ for the other plurals, but I often hear /θs/ especially from people who live in the south. I consider both to be correct. Dbfirs 07:05, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Do you also say truːð and youːð? If not, why is booth special? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:37, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

No, truth and youth and tooth are always /θ/ but booth and smooth are /ð/. I don't know why. Dbfirs 20:27, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

(Detroit) I would say "booth" to rhyme with "truth" and "tooth". "Smooth" is different. As for the plurals, they would sound like "truths" or "truthz", "tooths" or "toothz", "booths" or "boothz", but only "smoothz". StuRat (talk) 03:09, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

"Tooths", eh? Hmm. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:17, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

"Tooths" no, but maybe "sabertooths", and I would definitely use the unvoiced /θ/ for that. --Trovatore (talk) 06:57, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I live/work in London. Not sure I've ever heard the word "truths". I hear the other two words pronounced both ways, but more commonly as -es. We do like our language to be inconsistent, don't we? Tomatoes... --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:06, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

"Truths" is used on the BBC radio program The Unbelievable Truth --TrogWoolley (talk) 10:13, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

"We hold these truths to be self-evident" is well known. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:34, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Sure. I've read the term, just never heard it. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:49, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

I love that phrase, which in casual language might be "It should be freakin' obvious that..." StuRat (talk) 03:11, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Wiktionary says "youth" is pronounced with a "θ" but the plural with a "ðz", which also matches my experience of how the words are pronounced generally. How prevalent is "θs"? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:51, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Saying it to myself a few times (educated British English, from the south) I find I am making a distinction between possessive youth's (pronounced "θs") and plural youths ("ðz"). That seems to apply to quite a lot of words ending with "th" - though not to "tooth" Wymspen (talk) 17:01, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

• The voicing of the final -th is the same as the voicing of the final -f in knive and hooves. The loss of voicing there (i.e., "θs") is a very recent development, and sounds uncouth as far as I am concerned.

Per Heinlein, the plural of toothbrush is teethbreesh. --Trovatore (talk) 20:32, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

It would be more logical if the singular was "teethbrush" - surely no-one brushes a single tooth? Wymspen (talk) 20:38, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Except there is no final -f in "knive" [sic] or "hooves". They are spelt with a v. It would be odd to pronounce them as -f, given that. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:07, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

That's the fallacy of spelling pronunciation, pronouncing a silent letter (such as t in often) because it is spelt. Truth is a feminine noun in Germanic (-ō stem, the modern reflex of which is normally a final -e) and the "th", being intervocalic in the plural, became voiced. From Middle English (singular) truthe, trewthe, treowthe. μηδείς (talk) 00:28, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

You may have a point, generally speaking, but does anyone pronounce "hooves" as /hoofs/, or "knives" as /naifs/? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:20, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I have heard /hʊfs/. Basically, uncommon words become "regularized", so, since you hear knife almost daily, the "irregular" plural is retained, while "hoof" is heard much less frequently, and reverts to current phonological levelling. μηδείς (talk) 22:57, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

No-one has mentioned "sleuths" or "vermouths" yet, both of which I as an Englishman would pronounce with a θ. There's also crwth, a kind of medieval Welsh harp, but even when we antiquaries get together I seldom hear the plural being used. --Antiquary (talk) 21:32, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Vermouth, at least, is a borrowed word, and did not go through the final voicing of plurals in -es that occurred in Middle English. μηδείς (talk) 00:28, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

The Welsh are in the fortunate position of having distinguished the two consonants in their orthography, "dd" for /ð/ or "th" for /θ/. They also don't make plurals by adding an "s", so the plural is (I believe) crythau. Alansplodge (talk) 21:53, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

In Welsh, yes, but even Anglophone antiquaries use the word "crwth" and give it a normal English plural. --Antiquary (talk) 22:06, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Okay, point taken. Alansplodge (talk) 23:24, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

The difference between [f]→[v] plurals and [θ]→[ð] plurals (as well as the only common [s]→[z] plural, [haʊzɪz]/[haʊzɨz]) is that [f]→[v] shows up in conventional spelling, while the others don't. So there have been bitter disputes as to whether the plural of "roof" is "roofs" or "rooves", but this is less likely with [truːθs] vs. [truːðz] — not only because the difference doesn't show up in spelling, but also because a great number of linguistically unsophisticated speakers of English would have difficulty understanding or referring to the [θ]/[ð] contrast... AnonMoos (talk) 02:34, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Other than thy/thigh, is their a contrasting pair? μηδείς (talk) 02:59, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

There are minimal pairs by grammatical function: "wreath" (noun), "wreathe" (verb). Some people might not consider a minimal pair involving "thy" to be very valid for modern English... AnonMoos (talk) 03:21, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Ah, yes, wreath and wreathe, like breath and breathe. I do count thy as modern English. Thinks. μηδείς (talk) 23:08, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

And "mouth" (noun) vs "mouth" (verb), where there is not even a spelling difference. Exactly like "house" and "house". --ColinFine (talk) 23:32, 30 June 2017 (UTC)