Re: USAGE: Thorn vs Eth

Josh Brandt-Young writes:
 > on 7/10/02 9:25 AM, Andrew Chaney at adchaney@MAC.COM wrote:
 >
 > > on 9/7/02 23:57, Robert B Wilson (han_solo55@JUNO.COM) wrote:
 > >
 > >> I was wondering: is there anyone who actually pronounces sixth as /sIksT/
 > >> like every dictionary I've seen says?  For some reason I have a hard time
 > >> pronouncing /sT/.
 > >
 > > I do. It's terribly difficult, but how else am I to pronouce it?
 >
 > After realising that I seem to be saying [sIks:], I checked with my
 > girlfriend -- she also elides the [T] except in really careful speech.
 >
 > Wow, my idiolect has phonemic consonant length! :)
 >

I've been thinking about this, and while my canonical pronunciation of
sixth is /sIksT/, I'm pretty sure it sometimes encounters
hypercorrectional interference from fifth /fIfT/ and gets rendered as
/sIksfT/.  I doubt I'd produce it in fast speech, though.

Even stranger, while my width is normally /wIdT/, there's a part of me
that thinks the correct form is really /wIdtT/.  I don't think anyone
could discern the difference in my pronunciation, though.