Heard spelling

tyrse

Spelled thyrse. the th

Why th when it sounds like a t?

It does not quite. Thyrse opens with the th of thick rather than the t of tick, and at the front of a short word the difference is easy to miss.

The h is there because the Greek letter was theta, one character that Latin wrote as two and English has kept in every word it touched: theatre, thesis, theory, thermal. Tyrse throws away the transcription and with it the only clue to where the word came from.

Say

THURSS, rhyming with verse

Letters

T-H-Y-R-S-E