Heard spelling

tirse

Spelled thyrse. two changes at once

Tirse loses two letters at once.

The h of the Greek theta and the y of the Greek upsilon. What is left is a plausible English word with nothing to do with Dionysus.

Both letters are transcription rather than sound, which is why they are first to go when the word is written from hearing. A thyrse is a staff wreathed with ivy, borrowed as the name of a flower cluster built the same way.

Say

THURSS, rhyming with verse

Letters

T-H-Y-R-S-E