Geoduck (1882)

[Beverly Flanigan]

I would guess it was an attempt to represent the American Indian original,
which may have had either a glottal stop or [x] in the first syllable; both
are common in many AmInd languages.  So what was a nonnative speaker to do
when spelling it in English?  When does the name first appear in
print?   And how about the Monongahela (sp?)?

At 02:38 PM 11/7/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 11/7/02 12:21:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
> > Does anyone know how this tasty specimen got to be spelled "geoduck"
> >  while being pronounced "gooeyduck"?
>
>No, but maybe you could tell me how a river in Pennsylvania whose name is
>pronounced /'yuhk @ gein ee/ (that's a hard g) (name rhymes with "Allegheny")
>came to be spelled as "Youghiogheny".  George Washington was about the first
>English speaker to come anywhere near the Youghiogheny valley, and by then
>English had for centuries given up creating new spellings with "ough"---and
>no other English spelling uses "ough" for /uck/
>
>        - Jim Landau.