Right, the distinction I'm making is this isn't just "normalized" but actually the correct spelling. As in, if a newspaper editor saw it written as "drive-through" they would be obliged to correct it.
Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. They don't decide if something is "acceptable", just if it is widely used enough to report. If a mistake becomes common, it will enter the dictionary.
The etymology follows the drive-in which is basically a big parking lot you drive in to, do your ordering/eating/movie watching in your car, and then you drive out. And when you don't stop in the middle of a drive in, but instead you continue through it, in your car, it became a drive through.
Loved the show Dress to Kill by Eddie Izzard. He thought thru was much better than through coming to the conclusion that through should be pronounced like thruff.
The only reason you pronounce the H is because at some point the brits decided dropping the H made you sound low class. So congrats on perpetuating the elitism
Just a quick reminder that dictionaries are descriptive, they document existing language use rather than set down rules.
If enough people break an existing rule often enough, it makes it into dictionaries. Just ask anyone who doesn't think that "ironic" should mean "coincidental".
I should thank her for writing such a boring, tedious book filled with "old man yells at cloud" energy that it started me on the path away from prescriptivism.
Weird that Americans want to go with Aluminum when there’s also Americium, Berkelium, and Californium. Not to mention Deuterium, Helium, Iridium, Lithium, etc..
If we're going to be consistent with other elements, it should be Aluminum, that way it matches Molybdenum and Platinum, the only 2 other elements ending in "um" (please don't check this).
These spellings are extremely pervasive at my workplace and they drive me nuts. Granted, many people there are non-native English speakers. But that just means the people teaching them English are doing it wrong.