supercede, idiosyncracy

[sagehen]

>On Jun 14, 2005, at 6:31 AM, James Smith wrote:
>
>> I was actually taught "supercede" back in the day, and
>> had to be reeducated to the "correct" spelling.  I
>> have spoken and read "idiosyncrasy", but I believe
>> this is the first time in my life I have written the
>> word, and save for having the spelling brought to my
>> attention there is at least a 50% probability I would
>> have used a non-standard spelling.
>
>this provides the beginning of an answer to John Baker's: " It seems
>to me that anyone who is going to use a $2 word like supersede or
>idiosyncrasy should take the trouble to learn how to spell it."
>
>the thing is, in my experience the people using "supersede" and
>"idiosyncrasy" are just using words familiar to them in academic (or
>other technical) talk; they aren't reaching for fancy words.  so it
>doesn't occur to them to look the words up.  "supersede" *sounds*
>like it belongs with
>   precede recede concede accede secede intercede
>     (also succeed proceed)
>and "idiosyncrasy", with related "idiosyncratic", sounds like it
>belongs with all those "-cracy" words with "-cratic" relatives:
>   democracy theocracy aristocracy autocracy...
>hence the spellings "supercede" and "idiosyncracy".  then, since a
>fair number of these spellings will occur in print, they are reinforced.
>
>now, of course, the implied etymologies for "supersede" (as super
>+cede) and "idiosyncrasy" (as idio+syn+crac+y) are just wrong.  but
>it is way too much to expect that people, even very educated people,
>should know the etymologies of the words they hear. (and even if they
>do, this knowledge isn't always a reliable guide to spelling.)
>
>the advice to look up words whose spelling you're unsure of is not
>very helpful in general, since first you have to *be* unsure, and if
>you try to play safe by looking up every infrequent or technical
>word, you'll be paralyzed (even if you can figure out *how* to look
>up the words; if you think it's "supercede" you'll have something of
>a task to find "supersede").
>
>eventually, someone -- someone like me -- will set you straight, and
>then you'll at least remember that these words are problematic.  or
>you can use a spellchecker, though if your misspellings are
>infrequent the spellchecker is likely to be a big nuisance.
>
>arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
~>~>~>~>~>
The New Shorter OED does give "supercede" a listing, simply directing
attention to  "supersede."
A.Murie