Party pronunciation

[David Myer]

In relation to the good word of a couple of days ago, PARTY, I was amused (and I confess a little disappointed) by your advocacy of the word being pronounced Par Dee. Really! Even US dictionaries admit it has a 'T' in it. I know Americans have difficulty pronouncing the 't' sound and in words like City and Pretty, it sounds like a 'd'. But it surely should not be advocated?

[Slava]

In case you missed it, not hard as it didn't get posted to the Agora, here's the Doc's treatment:

PARTY

Pronunciation: PAR-dee
Hear it! Party

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A group of people gathered for a particular purpose, as a cocktail party, a raiding party, a party of tourists. 2. A political organization, as the Republican Party, the Social Democrat Party. 3. A participant, individual or group, as a party to a decision or contract. 4. An enjoyable social event.

Notes: The various meanings of this word come from the sense of "participate, take part in". You may take part in an evening of enjoyment, a raid, or a tourist excursion. You can participate in a decision, contract, or politics. The meaning is so broad, the specific uses take on meanings themselves until we get to the verb, 'to party', which applies to only one of those uses: having a good time. Remember to change the [y] to in the plural: 'parties'.

In Play: I hope you are so constantly effervescent that you feel like a walking party. However, you might not want to be a party to everything: "I will not be a party to any prank involving foul-smelling liquid in balloons." Genghis Khan was a real party dude, who loved to stage raiding parties. But calling the Republicans, Democrats, Communists, and Socialists parties does seem a stretch.

Word History: Our Good Word today comes from Old French partie "part, side, group", the feminine past participle of partir "to divide", the descendant of Latin 'partire'. The Latin verb is based on the noun pars (part- with suffixes) "a part, a share". The sense of political party was the first to arise, referring to the part or side of a particular issue. This sense migrated to a group of people from where it went on to refer to a social gathering. This root not only appears in 'parse', 'particle', 'parcel', 'impart', and 'repartee', it is also seen in 'portion' and 'pair', which came to us via French from Latin par "an equal".

-Dr. Goodword, alphaDictionary

I agree with David here, in part. This word has two pronunciations, one with the d and the other the t.

If I'm talking about politics, I'm more likely to use the t version.

If I'm going out for a wild one, I'm more likely to say "Pardy on, dudes."

Not that I do that, of course.