- Topics
- Aerospace
- Animals
- Anthro and Archaeology
- Bio and Medicine
- Brain and Behavior
- Business and Economy
- Computers and Electronics
- Education and Outreach
- Energy and Environment
- Geoscience
- Internet and Communication
- Media and Entertainment
- Nanotech, Chem and Materials
- Physics and Numbers
- Security and Defense
- Software
- Space
- Transportation
- Reader Blogs
- Shameless Commerce
- Register/Login
"nth" has a vowel when pronounced
Submitted by coglanglab on Mon, 2007-09-10 18:54.
Some purists might question "nth"s status as a word, but since I believe language is what people speak (not what some self-appointed arbiter of style decrees), I'll agree that "nth" is a word. It is also true that "nth" isn't written with a vowel. But the question is whether you want to go with the orthography or the pronunciation.
If you go with orthography, then all you are saying is that you've found a word that isn't written with a vowel. But I think if you say "nth" outloud to yourself and listen carefully, you'll see it's really "enth".
It's been said above, but just to repeat -- there are no words in spoken English that don't have vowels. Maybe there are some foreign borrowings that don't have vowels, but I doubt there are enough English-speakers who can pronounce those words to count them as English words in their own right.
Please try my web-based experiments
