Spelling: particular words

Variation in the spelling of particular words is due to two main factors.

During the early modern period numerous words were respelt according to their true or (occasionally) false Latin etymologies; this tendency began in late Middle English but gathered strength in our period. In some of these words the pronunciation has been adjusted to conform to the spelling, while others have not (hence the existence of ‘silent’ consonants). Examples:

Examples include:

· anchor (Middle English, anker)

· author (Middle English, autour; Latin, auctor)

· doubt (Middle English, doute)

· fault (Middle English, faute)

· nephew (Middle English, neuew)

During the period also, forms derived from different dialects or varieties of speech gradually ousted those originally used.

· friend only became common after 1530

· frend disappeared after 1630 (but the pronunciation remained)

· during the overlap, frind was also found

· before 1500 the word height was usually found with –th as the final consonant (in various forms such as heyth, highth)

· After 1550 the northern form h(e)ight became predominant (though Milton favoured highth)

· before 1500, sword(e) was rare and swerd(e) common

· between 1500 and 1550 they were about equally common

· after 1550, sword(e) was much commoner than swerd(e)

The stabilization of spelling

By the mid-seventeenth century printers followed general principles of spelling much like the present ones. Notably the modern distinctions between I and J and U and V were established by about 1630. The spelling of nearly all individual words was also identical with present-day forms in printed books. In ordinary handwritten documents, however, even those of well-educated people, spelling continued to vary noticeably until well into the eighteenth century.

I saw walking hard by me the appearancys of six men carrying a corps, uppon which, being somewhat frighted, I held my horse fast, and set forward, but saw it following of me yet as oft as I look’d back. Then, having got pretty far, I look’d behind me once more, and instead of the corps and men following of me I saw a bear with a great huge uggly thing sitting thereon, which thing I saw as oft as I look’d. Then of a suddain it disappear’d in a flash of fire, which made my horse leap out of the way and through me just when I had got to town end.
Abraham Pryme, Diary, 20 March 1696, published 1870.

Не знайшли потрібну інформацію? Скористайтесь пошуком google:

Генерація сторінки за: 0.003 сек.