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ArchivesRe: Leigh vs Lee
in reply to a message by thegriffon
Thank you
I simply seek to ensure that we do not argue - life is too short; the history of English - as with any language, cannot be entirely separated from a social history - with the confluence through the "hundred years war" amidst the English & French brought additional Latin influence via francais (I am not attempting to be correct with my francais phrase - only to lighten intentions).
So perhaps the Leigh spelling may also sound as "Leif".
I love that among many other words - the word 'Apophthegm' still bears traces of "editorial difficulties".
I intend these questions rhetorically - not toward you.
Once we edit the 'ph' (and eventually the g) from "Apophthegm" to "Apothegm" to "Apotheme" - (moving from 'g' to 'y' to silent 'e') have we given commercial book / dictionary publishers the right to remove traces of history for profit? Indeed we have! Who is to decide the correct spelling? If I were a student at a spelling B, or even just a (weekly?) spelling test, would I be incorrect to spell the with the "ph" when lexicographers themselves use the 'ph' for words borrowed from Greek? I find it disturbing that children are graded, and sadly degraded, for spelling when there is no source of absolute validity.
I simply seek to ensure that we do not argue - life is too short; the history of English - as with any language, cannot be entirely separated from a social history - with the confluence through the "hundred years war" amidst the English & French brought additional Latin influence via francais (I am not attempting to be correct with my francais phrase - only to lighten intentions).
So perhaps the Leigh spelling may also sound as "Leif".
I love that among many other words - the word 'Apophthegm' still bears traces of "editorial difficulties".
I intend these questions rhetorically - not toward you.
Once we edit the 'ph' (and eventually the g) from "Apophthegm" to "Apothegm" to "Apotheme" - (moving from 'g' to 'y' to silent 'e') have we given commercial book / dictionary publishers the right to remove traces of history for profit? Indeed we have! Who is to decide the correct spelling? If I were a student at a spelling B, or even just a (weekly?) spelling test, would I be incorrect to spell the with the "ph" when lexicographers themselves use the 'ph' for words borrowed from Greek? I find it disturbing that children are graded, and sadly degraded, for spelling when there is no source of absolute validity.
This message was edited 6/18/2018, 3:31 AM
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Replies
Despite spelling Bs and spell checkers, there is no "correct" or standard spelling (or punctuation) in English (some other languages have government or paragovernment institutions which attempt to regulate and occasionally reform spelling). It is all a matter of "style". English dictionaries merely record common usage that has persisted long enough to be relevant. The nebulous arbiters of style have settled on a balance of maintaining consistency of spelling between word variants, despite differences in pronunciation; maintaining some archaisms (e.g. the aforementioned nigh and cough etc.) or foreign conventions (e.g. the ph of apophthegm) for semantic clarity; and having an otherwise consistent orthography. Different authorities and publishers, particularly of news and textbooks, have their own standards, and some even publish guides (e.g. the AP stylebook, the NY Times or the Chicago Manuals of style), but authors of fiction and poetry are allowed more leeway to be "creative". The guiding principal is generally readability — changes in established spelling can trip people up and can create semantic confusion, making a text more, not less difficult to read for the existing reader base. Chaning the spelling of an unusual foreign word such as apophthegm doesn't present much difficulty to a reader, but change nigh to nie or ny and people have to stop and think "nie? Oh nigh!".
This doesn't apply to names of course, which have generally been decoupled from their original semantic and linguistic origin. Spelling accordingly varies quite a bit and is altered with every cultural shift. At the same time names may reflect archaic spellings that may have little relation to changes in prosaic language, or be reformed in ways prosaic language is not (as people are more likely to employ names they've only heard and be less concerned with "correct" spelling).
This doesn't apply to names of course, which have generally been decoupled from their original semantic and linguistic origin. Spelling accordingly varies quite a bit and is altered with every cultural shift. At the same time names may reflect archaic spellings that may have little relation to changes in prosaic language, or be reformed in ways prosaic language is not (as people are more likely to employ names they've only heard and be less concerned with "correct" spelling).
This message was edited 6/18/2018, 5:12 PM
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