With justification.
A seer is a “see-er”. One who sees.
I mean, yeah, I grokked the etymology. One syllable sounds better to me, like how “prayer” sounds more mellifluous as “prair” rather than “pray-er.” Well, at least to me. Could be a dialect thing.
I think this one SEER is typically one syllable!
Reviving this because I just saw a t-shirt that said “The Spelling of Irish Names is My Pet Piamh.”
Back in Ohio where I grew up there was an architect named Keeva Kekst. He spoke with a foreign accent, though I never found out what country he was from. It was definitely not an Irish accent, I can tell you that. I’d guess Israeli.
That isn’t what aspiration means.* The word you’re looking for is lenition.
*Though in certain other languages, h is used to show aspiration. The Irish language has none.
Broad and slender consonants are governed by a simple binary rule.
“Broad” means the back of the tongue is higher and the front of the tongue is lowered, like the pose of a playful dog.
“Slender” means the front top surface of the tongue rises all the way up to the hard palate, while the back of the tongue is lowered, like a cobra about to strike.
a, o, u trigger the doggie.
e and i trigger the cobra.
The lenited f, written fh, is phonetic zero. That means it has no sound at all. It’s completely silent.
The lenited t, spelled th, is pronounced [h]. That is aspiration, come to think of it. But not an aspirated consonant like in Thai. Just the pure sound of aspiration itself.
Póg mo thóin roughly like “Pogue Mahone.” Where the band the Pogues got its name from, I’m told.
ETA: I’ve been reminded that there are no snakes in Ireland. Oh well, there goes my career as an Irish teacher.