Daniel Masse wrote:
> Bob Cunningham wrote:
>> I haven't, but both British and American unabridged
>> dictionaries say that it's an obsolete or archaic variant of
>> "show".
>>
>> "Shew" appeared as a pronunciation spelling of the way Ed
>> Sullivan supposedly said "show". (Ed Sullivan was the
>> master of ceremonies of a popular television show forty or
>> fifty years ago.)
>
> You're right ! I had not thought of checking my old Webster (1953) :
> it says that "show" may be spelled "shew", specially by the
> British... Harrap's also mentions it.
>
You'll find it scattered through the King James Version of the Bible. I
actually worked with a bloke in the 1980s who chose to spell it that
way. It is considered strange and somewhat affected today.
--
John Dean
Oxford
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