We were discussing the pronunciation of the word “victuals” and I gave a theory of how first the c disappeared into the t sound, and then the second vowel became muted. Well, I was correct in that part, but it turns out I was just a little bit wrong, well, only a millenium or so, gee what do you want, miracles — on the time frame. What caught me out was the issue of hyper-correctness.
The Oxford dictionary and the rest of the library came out of storage last week —hurray! — and so I remembered I’d promised to look this up.
It seems that the word originated in the Latin “victualis” around two thousand or so years ago. This was pronounced as it is spelled (except theat Latin v is our w but let’s not go there now), just as predicted.
As Latin diverged in the Roman provinces after the fall of the Empire, the church people still spoke “correctly” and spelled in the Latin way, but the ordinary people in the street slurred their words and spelled as they talked, so the Old French word somewhere around the year 1000 was “vittailles”, pronounced with quick short vowels somewhere between “vee - tie - yuh” or “vih- tie - yuh” ; i.e. the c had disappeared into the t and the ending had been dropped, just as predicted.
French came over to England with the Normans in 1066, and as Old English/German and French blended, the word was pronounced “vittles” (the l sound returning) apparently pretty much as it has been carried down to today.
At that time the leaders wrote in “correct” Latin” or court French; the ordinary people didn’t write or spell much at all, so the word was around with the “vittailles” spelling. A modern pronunciation spelling of “vittles” would have been expected to develop at that point.
But then someone in the sixteenth or seventeenth century came in with the hyper-correctness. If it had been later it might have been old friend Dr. Johnson, who is responsible for many of the weirdnesses in our spelling. Anyway whoever it was felt that the pronunciation spelling was in some way low-class, and re-introduced the Latin spelling, despite the actual pronunciation.
This also happened with “debt” (spelled sensibly “dette” in French) and several other words; it’s a known confusion in linguistics.
So there you are. English spelling is weird because of history, literary tradition, dialect, and snobbery. Adds interest to life at times.
Re: To Rod -- more than you ever needed to know about the hi
Victoria,
In the book, “Why Our Children Can’t Read”, Diane McGuinness goes into a lot of detail on how the English alphabetic and spelling systems developed. If anyone is interested, it’s a pretty good summary to understand how our written language developed.
Janis
Re: To Rod -- more than you ever needed to know about the hi
Nothing against Diane McGuinness, who has done a lot of good in the world, but she didn’t invent the wheel and discover fire either. My mother and grandmother were teaching phonetically and studying the vagaries of the language long before she was born.
I’d certainly recommend parents or new teachers to read her book, a very good one (my own copy was loaned out and not returned) although her sales pitch for her program as the one and only right one is occasionally annoying. Those of us who’ve been in this game as long as she is go back to more basic sources too.
Re: To Rod -- more than you ever needed to know about the hi
I think she is very clear that the ideas for teaching reading go back to the way written langauge was developed. I guess I haven’t gotten to the sales pitch part, although I have skimmed the whole book and see Lindamood Bell and Phono-Graphix prominently displayed. I think the difference between people like you, Victoria, and me, is that you had a mother who apparently understood linguistics, and I possibly recall that you may even have a degree in linguistics. Very, very few people have your background. The rest of us must rely on training in programs that are appropriate. So I’m glad to read in a book(or books and articles) that Lindamood Bell and Phono-Graphix meet the qualifications of sound reading methods. No, they aren’t perfect, but it’s a more efficient way for me to get the skills I need quickly to help children immediately.
Janis
Re: To Rod -- more than you ever needed to know about the hi
i could be wrong, but i think Diane McGuiness is well into her 80’s so i think she has been around for a while as well, and who knows what her own mother or father did,
no she did not invent the wheel, but her book is excellent in that she takes a stand that few have the guts to do,
Shaywitz’s new book, seems like the same ole same ole to me
i do think in reading, too much time is wasted by saying that there is no one way to teach a code,
when in fact, reading a code is usually done only one way,
keep separate, learning from text, that is another field
but deciphering a code, Diane presents a good analysis of just what that is
Re: To Rod -- more than you ever needed to know about the hi
I think you miss my point. I think Diane McGuinness has written a very good book; bought it myself, read it, recommended it to several other people, and handed it out to a parent who didn’t get around to handing it back. That is certainly a positive review.
Just that it isn’t the final answer on everything — nothing is — and this particular discussion, as I tried to imply humourously in the title, is going into the finer details, above and beyond anything you really *need* to know; if you *want* to go into these finer details, join us in the fun but realize this is not mainstream.
Re: Awesome Victoria
I really do wish you would write a book all you have to do is get all your posts together and it would be awesome.
Thanks very much, working on it
Thanks for the kind words.
I’m making a start by collecting my how-tos together in a file and offering a massive download to anyone serious about tutoring reading.
Re: Thanks very much, working on it
Victoria,
You know, you could really publish that collection. I’d certainly buy one!
Janis
Re: To Rod -- more than you ever needed to know about the hi
How interesting! I always enjoy learning about the origin and history of words. One concept I remember first learning about in college was how language is “living.” It’s constantly growing and changing over time. We shed and create new words through the decades. It’s kind of fascinating to think about.
Thanks for sharing this!
Thank you. Now we know who to blame :)
Mad dogs and Englishmen…
John