LANGUAGE CORNER
Loath/Loathe
If This Isn't Loath...
Pick a winner: The villain in the novel said, "That I am loath to do." The newspaper article said, "It's a strategy that ... the council is loathe to pursue" (emphasis added). There's at least one respected reference work that says it doesn't make any difference how we spell the italicized adjective in those sentences, which means "reluctant." The suggestion is that we drop the "e" if, in speech, we choose to pronounce it with a hard "th" as in "Goth" or "pith," but use the "e" if we opt for a soft "th," as in, well, "loathe," meaning to abhor, to hate. Fortunately, several other reference works don't go along with that permissiveness. Let the verb be "loathe" and the adjective "loath," however you pronounce it. Inviting the world's writers to flip a coin also invites a bit of chaos, and could drive alert readers crazy.
