Outside of a Dog: O'Brian, Patrick: (03) H.M.S. Surprise (audio)

David Tate

David Tate wrote on November 22, 2005 at 11:52 AM:

sloth
c.1175, "indolence, sluggishness," formed from M.E. [slou, slowe] (see slow); replacing O.E. [slæwð]. Sense of "slowness, tardiness" is from c.1380. As one of the deadly sins, it translates L. accidia. The slow-moving mammal first so called 1613, a translation of Port. [preguiça], from L. [pigritia] "laziness" (cf. Sp. [perezosa] "slothful," also "the sloth").

So, 'sloth' the sin might just as easily be spelt 'slowth', by analogy with 'warmth' and 'breadth' and 'health', for it did originally mean "the state or attribute of being slow".

As for the animal, that's an interesting question. The local name for it was "lazy thing" in Portuguese, and the Spanish parallels that. But accidia in Latin didn't really mean laziness, as I understand it, but more like lethargic melancholy. I'm not sure whether that sense survives in the modern interpretation of the deadly sin of 'sloth'.

Kate

Kate wrote on November 22, 2005 at 12:33 PM:

re: sloth: so the British pronunciations of the sin and the animal are both "slowth"? Because the US pronunciation of the sin is "slôth" [*] and probably the animal too though it comes up less in conversation.

[*] Accent marks provided by this pronunciation key, anyway.

David Tate

David Tate wrote on November 22, 2005 at 12:42 PM:

I believe that's correct, wrt pronunciations on the two sides of the pond. Without any reference to back me up, I'll guess that this is another case of American English preserving vowels that were either superseded later in England, or belonged to an underclass accent (East Anglian, Sussex, cockney) that provided a disproportionate fraction of early settlers.

The OE version "slæwð" probably rhymed with modern American 'mouth'. I'd have to go review my Vowel Shifts to know which came first after that.