This is the article I’m referring to:
What is the origin of “Man of the Cloth”?
Dex says:
To the linguists out there:
Couldn’t “clath” have become “cloth” through the same vowel-shifting process that made “stane” become the modern “stone”?
Obviously, this is a heavy, industrial-strength nitpick
Since this is a comment on a Staff Report and not one of Cecil’s columns, I’ll move this thread over to the appropriate forum.
<< Couldn’t “clath” have become “cloth” through the same vowel-shifting process that made “stane” become the modern “stone”? >>
Sure. Could have been any one (or combination) of several reasons. I only cited this one in the Staff Report because I liked the classical allusion.