Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Twelfth Nighfth

Have you ever really looked at the spelling of the word "twelfth"? Isn't it, like, a little bit crazy? Like the weirdest, most demonic triphthong ever devised? 

Except, that is, for "triphthong"?

2 comments:

Steve Laniel said...

The history of the word is pretty awesome, as you might imagine. Check out the OED entry for it; since the OED isn't publicly accessible, I cached a copy of the entry.

Jim Leff said...

Wow, yeah, it's easy to imagine how an aberration like "twelfth" could have come out of all that!

Thanks for posting!

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