Are we being lazy when we say the name of the third day of the working week? Our ancestors might have thought so. When sounds disappearĮnglish spelling can be a pain, but it's also a repository of information about the history of pronunciation. It's called metathesis, and it's a very common, perfectly natural process. Remember this when the next time you hear someone complaining about aks for ask or nucular for nuclear, or even perscription. Wasp used to be waps bird used to be brid and horse used to be hros. Linguists call this kind of thing reanalysis or rebracketing. Constructions like "A nadder" or "Mine napron" were so common the first letter was assumed to be part of the preceding word. Words that used to begin with "n"Īdder, apron and umpire all used to start with an "n". Here are some of my favourites, complete with fancy technical names. There are lots of wonderful examples of alternative pronunciations or missteps that have become standard usage. Error is the engine of language change, and today's mistake could be tomorrow's vigorously defended norm. The term "supposed" opens up a whole different debate, of course. There are bound to be things we've read or are vaguely familiar with, but not able to pronounce as we are supposed to. But the average person's vocabulary is tens of thousands smaller, and the number of words they use every day smaller still. The 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary lists 171,476 words as being in common use. The point is malapropisms and mispronunciations are fairly common.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |