How To Pronounce Swath and Swathe

How To Pronounce Swath and Swathe How To Pronounce Swath and Swathe How To Pronounce Swath and Swathe By Maeve Maddox When I wrote a post on the confusion between the meanings of the nouns swath and swatch, I discovered that considerable disagreement exists regarding the pronunciation of the noun swath and the verb swathe. NOTE: The noun swath denotes the narrow path of cut grass made by a scythe or mower. The verb swathe means â€Å"to wrap up, swaddle or bandage.† If all you want from this article is to know how to pronounce swath and swathe, please skip the middle and read the part that begins, â€Å"My advice to speakers.† If like me you enjoy exploring changes in pronunciation, read the middle as well. Daniel Jones Pronouncing Dictionary This British reference, published 1967, gives one pronunciation for the spelling swath: /swÉ”Ë ÃŽ ¸/ [swawth] and one for swathe: /sweÉ ªÃƒ °/ [swayth]. Note: The spellings between square brackets are for readers unfamiliar with the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols. Plain a represents the broad a of father. Plain th represents the unvoiced sound of th heard in thin. Th represents the voiced sound of th heard in then. Ay represents the long a heard in late. Oxford English Dictionary For the verb swathe, the OED shows /sweÉ ªÃƒ °/ [swayth] as both British and US pronunciation. For the noun swath, the OED shows /swÉ’Î ¸/ [swath] for both British and US pronunciation. It gives /swÉ’Ã °/ [swath] as a variant US pronunciation. The spelling swathe is noted as a variant spelling of the noun swath. Merriam-Webster Unabridged The main entry for the noun shows the spelling swath, followed by an audio pronunciation that models broad a with voiced th: /swÉ’Î ¸/ [swath]. The spelling swathe is given as a variant spelling, but the pronunciation modeled for it on the audio is /swÉ’Ã °/ [swath]. Dictionary.com The noun swath is shown with the pronunciation /swÉ’Î ¸/ [swath]. Two pronunciations are given for the verb swathe: â€Å"/swÉ’Ã °/ [swath] or /sweÉ ªÃƒ °/ [swayth].† Howjsay.com This site usually gives the British pronunciation of a word first, followed by US pronunciation is applicable. However, the principal pronunciation given for swath is not OED’s /swÉ’Î ¸/ [swath] but voiced /sweÉ ªÃƒ °/ [swayth]. Four â€Å"American† pronunciations are given: [swath], [swath], [sworth], and [sworth]. No doubt about it, English speakers have problems with swath and swathe. Charles Elster (The Big Book of Beastly Pronunciation) devotes nearly an entire page to the pronunciation of the verb swathe. He begins by showing [swayth] as the â€Å"traditional† pronunciation, acknowledging that the word is â€Å"now often† heard pronounced as [swath]. He prefaces his discussion by lamenting: I find it nothing short of remarkable that- viewed from the perspective of the dictionaries- a pronunciation that has prevailed in cultivated speech for more than 150 years can be replaced, seemingly overnight, by a newly minted variant that no authority has recognized, rejected, or even remarked upon. He blames Merriam-Webster for the aberration, pointing out that in 1961, â€Å"in an astonishing bit of lexicographic legerdemain,† Webster’s Third Edition â€Å"gave priority to the heretofore unknown and unbaptized SWATH and labeled the traditional SWAYTH â€Å"infrequent.† He ends his rant with a reluctant acceptance of broad a for the verb as well as for the noun, but pleads that speakers keep the voiced th: However you choose to pronounce the a, do not, under any circumstances, pronounce the th with a dental hiss as in breath and death. It must be voiced, as in seethe, breathe, and rather. My advice to speakers who are not yet set in their ways regarding swath and swathe is this: If you mean the noun, spell it swath and pronounce it /swÉ’Î ¸/ [swath]. Example: â€Å"The mower cut a swath six feet wide.† If you intend the verb, spell it swathe and pronounce it to rhyme with bathe. Example: â€Å"Do not swathe the baby too tightly.† Note: The spelling swathe [pronounced /sweÉ ªÃƒ °/ [swayth] can be used as noun to mean â€Å"a band of linen or other fabric used to wrap something; a length of fabric.† British author Marjorie Eccles uses swathe as a noun in her mystery The Superintendent’s Daughter (1999): Abigail eased her waybetween the stands of wallpaper books and rolls of furnishing fabrics jostling modern and antique pieces of furniture. Swathes of rich, stained-glass-coloured old silk and velvet lay side by side with currently fashionable jujube-coloured cottons, lemon and lime and orange. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Apply to, Apply for, and Apply with34 Writing Tips That Will Make You a Better Writer50 Tips on How to Write Good

The Deepest Point in the Oceans

The Deepest Point in the Oceans The Earths oceans range in depth from the surface to more than 36,000 feet deep. The average depth clocks in at just over 2 miles, or about 12,100 feet. The deepest known point is nearly 7 miles below the surface. Deepest Point in the World's Oceans The oceans deepest area is the Mariana Trench, also called the Marianas Trench, which is in the western part of the Pacific Ocean. The trench is 1,554 miles long and 44 miles wide, or 120 times larger  than the Grand Canyon. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the trench is almost 5 times wider than it is deep. The deepest point  of the trench is called Challenger Deep, after the British ship  Challenger II, which discovered it on a 1951 surveying expedition. Challenger Deep lies at the southern end of the Mariana Trench near the Mariana Islands. Various measurements have been taken of the oceans depth at Challenger Deep, but it is usually described as 11,000 meters deep, or 6.84 miles beneath the oceans surface. At 29,035 feet,  Mount Everest  is the tallest spot on Earth, yet if you submerged the mountain with its base at Challenger Deep, the peak would still be more than a mile below the surface. The water pressure at Challenger Deep is 8 tons per square inch. By comparison, water pressure at a depth of 1 foot is just over 15 pounds per square inch. Creation of the Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench is at the convergence of two of the Earths plates, the massive sections of the planets rigid outer shell just below the crust. The Pacific plate is subducted or dives underneath, the Philippine plate. During this slow dive, the Philippine plate was pulled down, which formed the trench. Human Visits to the Bottom Oceanographers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh explored the Challenger Deep in January 1960 aboard a bathyscaphe named Trieste. The submersible carried the scientists 36,000 feet down, which took 5 hours. They could spend only 20 minutes on the sea floor, where they viewed an ooze and some shrimp and fish, although their view was hampered by sediment stirred up by their ship. The trip back to the surface took 3 hours. On March 25, 2012, filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer James Cameron became the first person to make a solo voyage to the deepest point on Earth. His 24-foot tall submersible, the  Deepsea Challenger, reached 35,756 feet (10,898 meters) after a 2.5-hour descent. Unlike Piccard and Walshs brief visit, Cameron spent more than 3 hours exploring the trench, although his attempts to take biological samples were hampered by technical glitches. Two unmanned submersibles- one from Japan and the other from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts- have explored the Challenger Deep. Marine Life in the Mariana Trench Despite cold temperatures, extreme pressure, and lack of light, marine life does exist in the Mariana Trench. Single-celled protists called foraminifera, crustaceans, other invertebrates, and even fish have been found there.