Talk:fifth

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

The following is a copy of a short conversation from my talk page:

I can't say I've ever heard the alternative pronunciation [ /fɪθ/ ] in the US, except in specific urban and African-American dialects. --EncycloPetey 23:41, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I hear it in lazy speech on this side of the Atlantic. I'll adjust the labels and write a quick usage note. Thryduulf 11:41, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Really? To me "fith" sounds perfectly normal. ("Fitty" sounds urban/AA, though.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:02, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Brought here for more opinions. Thryduulf 14:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

The no-second-"f" pronunciation is common in most places I've spent a lot of time (mostly US). More commonly, I think, there is a vestige remaining among many speakers. If someone were asked to repeat the word, they might well articulate the second "f". DCDuring TALK 15:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: vestige, repetition, etc.: Yeah, I agree. —Ruakh_TALK 17:29, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not really an alternative pronunciation, it's laziness. Compare (deprecated template usage) curtain, (deprecated template usage) topsail, and especially (deprecated template usage) decibel - they are all often pronounced with vowels omitted, as though written as curtn, topsl, and decibl. That doesn't make them alternate pronunciations (on the entry for curtain we only include the unslurred one), it's just the way people say things quickly. Granted, sometimes that pronunciation can enter the language and even become more common (compare (deprecated template usage) caramel and (deprecated template usage) comfortable), but when it's clearly just omission of a sound to make it easier to say, I don't believe this "alternate pronunciation" should be included at all. Teh Rote 23:54, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

That's how I used to feel about boatswain and Worcestershire, or for that matter norange and petrol or gas (gasoline). Are shortened pronunciations worse or better if the dropped phonemes are taken out of the middle rather than one of the ends?

If someone were to hear such a pronunciation, not understand what s/he was hearing, know IPA, know how to search using IPA, and if we supported IPA search, shouldn't they be able to find the entry? DCDuring TALK 00:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking there are entirely too many ifs in that argument. Would you include the slurred pronunciations on the examples I gave above? Teh Rote 15:47, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I was pulling folks' chains on this, but with the point that you got. There is little value in including numerous varieties of pronunciation varieties, especially of a predictable "lazy speech" variety, until we have some evidence that the "if" conditions are satisfied for a sufficient number of users. DCDuring TALK 12:23, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

The comment on lazy pronunciation flies in the face of modern linguistics. The phenomenon in question is called consonant cluster reduction, and it is a feature of many dialects. Besides, the nature of a dictionary is descriptive, not prescriptive. Such editorializing has no place. -- Xataro 8 October 2010

adverb: Ralph spoke fifth

According to the Oxford dictionary. By the way, is "the fifth" also possible as an adverb? --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:02, 30 July 2019 (UTC)