The Story of the Colonel
English is a crazy language. It’s that simple. Ask any English teacher and ask any person whose second language is English. The language makes no sense. English is a grammar and language defined by chaos.
Why is English so crazy? Why do some verbs use “ed” to form the past tense but sing becomes sang when used to describe a past event? Why do tough, through, though, and thought all contain the ough letter sequence, but each are pronounced differently?
There are not answers for all of the inconsistencies in English, but there are some logical explanations for some of the crazy aspects of this language. Here is an example.
The word colonel is interesting. It has a weird spelling considering its pronunciation is similar to “cernel”. So why would a word with an l and no r be pronounced with an r sound?
“The word come from the Old French coronelle, which the French adapted from the Italian colonello (from which we get colonnade). When the word first came into English in the mid-sixteenth century, it was spelled with an r, but gradually the Italian spelling and pronunciation began to challenge it. For a century or more both spellings and pronunciations were commonly used, until finally with inimitable illogic we settled on the French pronunciation and the Italian spelling.” – The Mother Tongue – English & How It Got That Way, Bill Brysen, ISBN: 0-380-71543-0, pages 122-23.
Why is English so crazy? Why do some verbs use “ed” to form the past tense but sing becomes sang when used to describe a past event? Why do tough, through, though, and thought all contain the ough letter sequence, but each are pronounced differently?
There are not answers for all of the inconsistencies in English, but there are some logical explanations for some of the crazy aspects of this language. Here is an example.
The word colonel is interesting. It has a weird spelling considering its pronunciation is similar to “cernel”. So why would a word with an l and no r be pronounced with an r sound?
“The word come from the Old French coronelle, which the French adapted from the Italian colonello (from which we get colonnade). When the word first came into English in the mid-sixteenth century, it was spelled with an r, but gradually the Italian spelling and pronunciation began to challenge it. For a century or more both spellings and pronunciations were commonly used, until finally with inimitable illogic we settled on the French pronunciation and the Italian spelling.” – The Mother Tongue – English & How It Got That Way, Bill Brysen, ISBN: 0-380-71543-0, pages 122-23.
posted by Alan | 11:18 AM
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