"Drouth"

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:22 PM -0500 11/7/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>Perhaps loan words and falsely-etymologized expressions constitute
>special categories. Does the pronunciation of "chaise-longue" as
>"chaise-lounge" (usually called, simply, a "folk etymology") result
>from a misspelling of the word in the mind's eye (with the "n" and
>the "u" transposed)?
>
>--Charlie

I've seen it referred to (and refer to it in class handouts myself)
as an orthographically induced folk etymology, as opposed to the
usual phonetically/phonologically induced ones.

LH

>_____________________________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
>>Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 15:51:25 -0400
>>From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>
>>At 3:19 PM -0500 11/7/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>
>>>I believe Larry is speaking historically: Until the 16th century,
>>>"autor" or "autour" was the normal spelling, presumably
>>>representing the standard English pronunciation. Sometime in the
>>>15th century, Frenchmen started spelling the word "authour," which
>>>would (probably) represent the same pronunciation as "autour."
>>>However, when the French (mis?-)spelling "authour" made its way to
>>>England, Englishmen began pronouncing the word with an
>>>unhistorical [T] or theta.
>>
>>exactly
>
>>
>>>Similarly with the proper name "Anthony" . . .
>>
>
>>with the added fillip (as oppose to Phillip) that it was evidently
>>assumed that the name derived from the Greek "anthos" 'flower', as
>>in "anthology"--but not as in "Ant(h)ony".
>>
>>Larry
>
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