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The ostensible Rule: Pronounce "The" with a "Long E" before a vowel.
I believe this idea arises because we Americans tend to run our words together, obscuring the boundaries between them. We tend to keep our voice sounding through the word boundaries rather than diminishing it briefly to indicate the word boundary. So other methods appear to emphasize the word boundaries.
In the case of "The" before vowels, the "Long-E" emphasizes the boundary between "The" and most following vowels. An exception would be a phrase like "The East Side." I live on The East Side of Madison, Wisconsin, which has given me the opportunity to gather some data. In conversation, some people who ordinarily follow the rule will break it when saying "The East Side" and use the "The with the Schwa" instead of their usual choice. Others will follow the rule, but diminish the voicing across the word boundary. Still others just say "Theest Side" because they are slovenly speakers of the English language and don't care about such things. ;o) Unfortunately, I can't report accurate ratios among these groups of speakers at this time.
For me, this stuff also ties into the "mouth-feel" discussion of the latter part of the program. I have a sort of psycho/moto/kinaesthetico reaction to leaving the words unbounded. I have no notion of following a rule – just an awareness that I want to create a boundary between the words. If I try to break the rule, I feel the muscles of my language-producing apparatus rebelling just a little bit, as if saying "We know how to do this, and don't much like being told to do otherwise." There's more tension in that "Long-E" than any other vowel, making it the likeliest choice to create the boundary's contrast.
One place where children learn the difference between "the" and "thuh" is in choir. Because language is sustained in singing, it becomes important as to which you use. My 4th grade choir knew which to use. They also learned what a dipthong is and how to sing it!
My question: Which sounds better- the United States or thuh United States? "U" has a consonant sound although it is a vowel. What about words where the first letter is silent, such as "honor"? Maybe is doesn't matter!
"Thē" is sometimes used for emphasis, such as "CBGB is the club to go to on Friday night." I recall reading that often, when "thē" is used in place of "thuh", the speaker is having difficulty remembering some detail, so "thē" is drawn out and followed by "uh" or "um", like "I got this at the, uh, Whitefront store near Canyon Road."
I'd like to see a survey of whether the people who learned the "Thee / Thuh" rule as a child attended Catholic School. I did and learned the rule; have known it all my life. My husband is well spoken and uses the rule but never learned it as such. He went to public school. The caller said she attended a K-8 school, which is what set me to wondering...
I have to say I use them interchangeably, and I've never (before the podcast) heard mention of this notion that there is any sort of difference; in British English it certainly doesn't seem to exist, or matter, other than for the emphatic use described above (and even that isn't hard and fast: I could imagine an M.C. saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, The-eeee Supremes!â€, but I can also imagine someone saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, Thuuhhhh Beatles!â€
Thinking about it, I actually find the “thee†version harder to use with some vowels, e.g. “Thuh ease with which something happened…â€, seems and feels much better than “Thee ease with which something happened…â€
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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