Dear Editrix,
Have you ever discussed words that aren’t pronounced the way they’re spelled, like colonel?
Dear Reader,
Oh yes, we have discussed the many oddities of English spelling and pronunciation. I was going to get right back to you and tell you these things are due to the many languages we borrow from, the amount of time English has been around, and more. But then I stumbled on this article, which happens to contain the word colonel, and I liked the opening of the article, so I’m passing you over to Merriam-Webster and including a few of the words they cover and the pronunciations.
English is famously difficult to spell. It requires those who read and write it to accept that were rhymes with her (but not with here); that toe rhymes with dough, (but not with cough); that bird rhymes with word but not with cord, and except and accept are two distinct words that can’t readily be distinguished in speech.
English spelling can be largely blamed on its long, meandering journey from its Germanic infancy through its impressionable childhood of encounters with Latin, Old Norse, and Anglo-French, plus its adulthood spent raiding nearly every other language it happens to bump into. All those encounters, plus the fact that the language is more than a thousand years old and languages are simply inherently vulnerable to the vagaries of time.
One irksome upshot of all the resultant inconsistency in spelling is that spelling often isn’t a reliable cue for pronunciation. Lots of words simply don’t say what you’d expect them to say, given their appearance. But say them in a way other than the way radio professionals are taught and you’re likely to encounter some raised eyebrows.
The following words and pronunciations are from Merriam-Webster, but some of the definitions and etymologies are from the Online Etymology Dictionary. I used this resource so you can see how the words evolved over time, and like in the case of colonel, some words were originally spelled the way we pronounce them today (colonel pronounced like “kernel,” though the “r” hasn’t been in the word since the 1500s).
| Word | Pronunciation | Definition and Etymology |
| colonel (n.) | KER-nul | "chief commander of a regiment of troops," 1540s, coronell, from French coronel (16c.), modified by dissimilation from Italian colonnella "commander of the column of soldiers at the head of a regiment," from compagna colonella "little column company," from Latin columna "pillar," collateral form of columen "top, summit”.
The French spelling was reformed late 16c. The English spelling was modified in 1580s in learned writing to conform to the Italian form (via translations of Italian military manuals), and pronunciations with "r" and "l" coexisted until c. 1650, but the earlier pronunciation prevailed. (From the Online Etymology Dictionary) |
| victuals(n.) | VIT-ulz | [KC – I still can’t believe this is pronounced “vittles!”] c. 1300, vitaylle (singular but the word is typically plural in Middle and Modern English), "food, food and drink; a stock of food and drink for warfare or travel," from Anglo-French and Old French vitaille "food for humans, nourishment, provisions," from Late Latin victualia "provisions." This is a noun use of plural of victualis "of nourishment," from victus "livelihood, food, sustenance, that which sustains life," from past participle stem of vivere "to live". English forms in -ct- are attested from c. 1400, and the classically correct spelling predominates from early 16c., but the pronunciation remains stubbornly "vittles." (From the Online Etymology Dictionary) |
| clapboard | KLAB-erd | "a narrow board that is thicker at one edge than at the other and that is used to cover the outsides of buildings"…It came to English as a partial translation of the Dutch word klaphout, meaning “stave wood”; it probably derives from the Dutch verb clappen, meaning “to clap” or “to hit,” from the way carpenters nailed siding to houses. The phonetic pronunciation is sometimes used for the wood siding but always used when clapboard refers to the clapping slate used in filmmaking. (Definition from M-W) |
| cupboard | KUB-erd | Literally a “cup board”: that is, a board or table on which cups can be stored—at least at its origins in the Middle Ages. The “closet” meaning dates to the mid-1500s, and the "p" and "b" of the spelling have long since merged in pronunciation. As an exercise, try saying the literal “cup board” ten times fast, and you’ll experience firsthand how language evolves. (Definition from M-W) |
| solder | SAH-der | The silent "l" in solder ("a metal or metallic alloy used when melted to join metallic surfaces") isn’t completely exotic: other, more common words like salmon, calm, walk, should, and calf also typically have one. But since solder is encountered less frequently than these (and is perhaps spoken more frequently than it is written), it’s a tricky one.
The "l" wasn’t always there: up until the 1500s, most spellings of solder didn’t include it. But its Latin ancestor is solidare, "to make solid," which seems to have been used to justify adding the "l" in. (Definition from M-W) |
If you’re interested in more, see the original article on the Merriam-Webster website. Meanwhile, I’ll be considering that the cowboys in Westerns were eating vittles, but that the word victuals is actually spelled more like a Catholic sacrament.
Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory | Knowledge Enablement
Pronouns: she/her | Call via Teams | jackhenry.com
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