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Re:Thames but not Thyme

Posted by Word Camel on October 20, 2002

In Reply to: Thames and Thyme posted by Shae on October 20, 2002

: : : : Why isn't the 'h' pronounced in these words? Just wondering because a Greek friend was prounouncing the 'h' today and it struck me as odd. Are there other words that do this?

: : phthisic, for one. It's pronounced tiz-ik, which probably makes it the hardest word to sight-read in English.

: The 'h' in 'Thames' and 'Thyme' is pronounced by most English speakers who don't live in the UK. It's just one of the foibles of English English. How would a non-English person know that Worcestershire Sauce is really Wuster Sauce or that the Munster rugby team was beaten by Glosster last weekend?

Where is the 'h' in Thyme pronounced? I haven't spanned the entire globe but in my own experience English speakers from the US, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland (at least the Western part) all prounounce the word without the 'h'.

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