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I was having a conversation recently and used the word height. What stands out to me is that I pronounced it /haɪθ/ as opposed to /haɪt/. I realized that I pronounce it this way quite often.

Is this related to Grimm's Law or could it just be because of the pronunciations of width and length?

Follow up question: Is this a common phenomenon; is it something that's catching on and starting to become part of the English language?

I am a native speaker from the U.S.

Josh Sellers
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    I think it's fairly "natural" to pronounce it different ways in different contexts. In particular, if you say "The post is twenty-seven inches in height" then you're apt to pronounce it with the trailing "th" sound, whereas if you ask "What's the height of that post?" you're apt to pronounce it with the trailing "t" sound. I'm guessing that there's some "rule" of pronunciation ("discovered" by analyzing other words) that the speech center in your brain knows and is applying, even though you're not conscious of it. – Hot Licks Sep 26 '15 at 23:16
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    @HotLicks Really? I've personally never pronounced nor heard pronounced the trailing "th" sound. Maybe it's a regional thing. – Dan Bron Sep 27 '15 at 00:19
  • @DanBron - I suspect you just don't hear it, even though it's there. – Hot Licks Sep 27 '15 at 00:27
  • @HotLicks I've been pronouncing the word to myself for the last couple minutes. I only have your "in height" / "height of" example to compare, but I'm not hearing any difference in myself. The linked dupe suggests that such a pronunciation is popularly disparaged, so presumably it's audible to untrained listeners (like myself). – Dan Bron Sep 27 '15 at 00:29
  • @DanBron - Keep in mind that if you study IPA enough, all you hear is IPA sounds. – Hot Licks Sep 27 '15 at 13:38

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