creature/critter

[Ray Easton]

On Tuesday, Nov 28, 2006, at 10:12 US/Central, Ya Sam wrote:

> I've noticed that Pynchon is fond of using the word 'critter' instead 
> of 'creature', as I understand it, 'critter' is a colloquial word, 
> maybe it's also used regionally in the States. I haven't come across 
> it in the works of British writers.

Critter, a pronunciation spelling of creature, actually reflects a 
pronunciation that would have been very familiar to Shakespeare: 16th- 
and 17th-century English had not yet begun to pronounce the -ture 
suffix with its modern (ch) sound. This archaic pronunciation still 
exists in American critter .... The most common meaning of critter is 
“a living creature,” whether wild or domestic; it also can mean “a 
child” when used as a term of sympathetic endearment, or it can mean 
“an unfortunate person.” In old-fashioned speech, critter and beast 
denoted a large domestic animal. The more restricted senses “a cow,” “a 
horse,” or “a mule” are still characteristic of the speech in specific 
regions of the United States. The use of critter among younger speakers 
almost always carries with it a jocular or informal connotation.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=critter
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