Clothes

I refer to an old thread in relation to the pronunciation of the word "clothes".

I have copied an extract for the ease of your reference.

Can you please give me an idea of what the symbol [l] in "Some people pronounce 'th' as [l], like this: " is.

Thank you.



Originally Posted by harrymick
Dear sir:

I was wondering How you pronounce 'clothes', if you will bite your tongue's top for pronouncing the 'th' before the 'es'. or you won't pronounce the 'es'?
I agree. clothes and close, as in Please, close the door, are pronounced the same:

I have new clothes [klo:z].
Please, close [klo:z] the door.

(Note, close, as in We are very close friends, is pronounced with an , not [z]: close [klo:s])

Some people pronounce 'th' as [l], like this:

clothes [klo:lz]

Some people pronounce 'th' as a voiced sound, like in the word that:

clothes [klo:]th[z].


Some non-native English speakers pronounce the '-es' in clothes as

clothes [klo:]th[i:z]

In everyday AmE pronunciation, in my opinion, "clothes" = "close".

That is true for the noun "clothes". The verb has a different pronunciation. The "th" is pronounced in the verb.

svetlana14 said:

I refer to an old thread in relation to the pronunciation of the word "clothes".

Can you please give me an idea of what the symbol [l] in "Some people pronounce 'th' as [l], like this: " is.
clothes [klo:lz]
Thank you.

Click to expand...

It looks like a typo. It is the same symbol as the one after /k/. He's written "cloles".
By the way, in BrE and AusE, clothes usually keeps the 'th'.

Thank you,

I was trying to google pronunciation of clothes like [klo:lz] i.e. using l (like l in "lemon"?) but failed. I am wondering what native speakers pronounce in such a manner? Many thanks?

svetlana14 said:

Thank you,

I was trying to google pronunciation of clothes like [klo:lz] i.e. using l (like l in "lemon"?) but failed. I am wondering what native speakers pronounce in such a manner? Many thanks?

Click to expand...

How do you mean? It's a typographical error (a typo). Native speakers don't pronounce [klo:lz], and if they did, it would be, well, [klo:lz], as in 'cloles'. There's little call for pronouncing it because it's not an English word - this applies to a lot of typos.

Maybe I didn't explain "typographical error" well enough. It's when you type something you don't mean. It's a mental slip (usually) - occasionally a physical one - but here it has the quality of perseveration from the first [l]. The author did not intend to write [klo:lz].