prophe(s/c)y again

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Oct 24, 2007, at 4:45 AM, Mark Mandel wrote:

> It goes both ways. Just now I chanced on "prophesy" as a noun, used
> by Terri
> Windling (who should know better): "the keys to the riddles, the
> prophesies'
> answer" (Realms of Fantasy, Oct. 2007, p.32).

ah, but is this just spelling?  this all started with a pronunciation
difference.

huge number of hits for {"a prophesy"}, but i'd guess that nearly all
of them represent the pronunciation with /i/.  also many hits for the
verb "prophecied", presumably pronounced with /aj/.

Brians, Common Errors:

“Prophecy,” the noun, (pronounced “PROF-a-see”) is a prediction. The
verb “to prophesy” (pronounced “PROF-a-sigh”) means to predict
something. When a prophet prophesies he or she utters prophecies.

MWDEU:

The OED shows that historically both spellings have been used for
both functions.  Webster's Second recognizes -cy for the verb and -sy
for the noun as infrequent variants, and so does Webster's Third.

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but all this is about spelling.

MWDEU on "prophesize": Bremner 1980 says this word does not exist,
but it does.  It is, however, of such low frequency in print that it
is not eligible for entry even in an unabridged dictionary.  We have
examples so far from 1966 and 1981, and a local western Massachusetts
newspaper not noted fr elegant spelling essayed _prophesize_ in 1974.

-----

[but now it's in the OED]

the Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993) says it

is Substandard, apparently an error caused by a feeling that
_prophesy_ needs a suffix to be a real verb. To say or write
_prophesize_ is a shibboleth.

----

ah, but we've been *here* before.  from Fred Shapiro, 3/26/05:
Despite having over 11,000 Google hits and being used  prominently in
Bob Dylan's landmark 1964 song "The Times They Are A-Changin'," the
word _prophesize_ is still not in OED or Merriam-Webster.

follow-ups by various people, including David Barnhart [contrast with
the Columbia Guide above]:
The Barnhart Dictionary Companion (Vol. 13.3, 2001, p p 285-6)  [N.B.
the first note at the end of the entry]

prophecize, v. {w} A variant form of prophesy (BDE: about 1350).
Standard (used in informal contexts dealing especially with
communication; common)

----

and Jesse Sheidlower pointed out that it was in the OED, under
"prophecize".  now in 2007, the OED entry is for "prophesize", with
variant spellings: 18- prophecise, 18- prophesise, 18- prophesize,
19- prophecize.

arnold

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