Sal vay cee on or salvayshun

[jean]

Don't be tiresome.

Are you always so intolerant of a view that differs from yours?

If we had been especially, and consciously, deferential to French at the time when British English spelling was being standardised, we'd presumably have ensured that we ended up with emperour, errour, governour, horrour, tenour, terrour, and tremour as well.

But we didn't.

Webster's spellings were the result of a decision to remove letters he considered superfluous; what happened in Britain was I believe much more haphazard.


.

[Pabmusic]

...I think that's because the whole process is more haphazard than a result of conscious choice on anyone's part.

Now that I do agree with very much. Nothing in the English language is carefully though-out. It remains the case, though, that British English began to be standardised at a time when there was a fashion for Frenchifying the language. It accounts for some of RP as well. (At the same time, incidentally, there was a parallel, more academic, move to 'classicise' English by such things as adding the b to the word dett(e) and, I guess, removing some the u's from the words you quote - all a mess.) I accept that the 'u' in colour, honour and the like entered English from Norman French, and is not the result of 17th and 18th-Century Frenchification, but it would be stretching it a bit far to say it was not 'firmed up' during the 'French accent' period. In the US the preference for -or endings is largely down to Noah Webster.

Sorry to have likened you to a taxonomist. No-one should be subjected to that.

[Simon]

Some sing salvaTion - no sh.

I'm mystified, as despite a dozen years of singing and 25+ of listening to good choirs up and down the land, I've never heard any sing sal va Ti on. Yes, there's a mix of three and four syllables renditions, for the reasons already stated by others, but this? Could you let us know where this is done, or where you've heard it?

As to the T sound in Latin, as Jean mentions, I've certainly both heard and sung that, though as regards singing I can't recall what rules there were about it. I suspect we just picked up as probs what had always been done, and continued it...

[btw belated compliments of the season to everyone]

[Magnificat]

Hertfordshire is definitely the older spelling, and the present pronunciation the older one, too. This is common with place names because their spellings often settled down rather earlier than general spellings did, meaning that the old spellings were often preserved. (The newer town of Hartford, Connectcut, uses the newer spelling.) Usually the old pronunciation was preserved with it (Derby, Berkshire, Berkley) though not always (Berkhamstead); sometimes the new spelling took over (Barking). A few general words preserve the old spelling - clerk, sergeant, for instance. Often there are both versions (Berkley/Barclay; merchant/Marchant; sergeant/Sargent; Kerr/Carr; clerk/Clark; university/varsity).

Also, many old pronunciations were preserved at the fringes (particularly the American frontier) - varmin(t) (vermin), larn (learn), sart'n (certain), pars'n (person), along with critter (creature) and many others that give us clues as to old pronunciations.

Pabmusic,

Thanks, very interesting.

Of course, the emblem of the county is the deer ( Hart - a play on words no doubt- but always so spelt as far as I am aware ( Like as the hart desireth the waterbrook etc ). The county town Hertford may also have been derived from the fact that it was the place where the deer crossed the river or something like that so perhaps it is a little surprising that the 'er' spelling ever came about in the first place?

Regards,

VCC

[Simon]

All fascinating stuff indeed. Thanks to all.

As regards Hertford (UK), what would be interesting to know is whether the Hartford spelling ever existed. Or whether the hart (animal) was ever spelled hert. Or, possibly, whether the connection with the animal at the ford is in this case unsubstantiated and the derivation is from elsewhere.

I wonder why Berkhamstead is the odd one out....

[vinteuil]

whether the hart (animal) was ever spelled hert.....

Old English heort, Middle English (up to & incl Chaucer) hert.

[Simon]

Thanks vint. So that seems to be how that developed then.

My good wishes for the New Year.

[Mr Stoat]

In Morningside (a posh bit of Edinburgh, m'Lud) sex is reputedly what coal is delivered in.

Should that not be "In which coal is delivered" ?

[Magnificat]

All fascinating stuff indeed. Thanks to all.

As regards Hertford (UK), what would be interesting to know is whether the Hartford spelling ever existed. Or whether the hart (animal) was ever spelled hert. Or, possibly, whether the connection with the animal at the ford is in this case unsubstantiated and the derivation is from elsewhere.

I wonder why Berkhamstead is the odd one out....

Simon

I have seen the spelling on antiquarian maps

VCC

[Pabmusic]

...The county town Hertford may also have been derived from the fact that it was the place where the deer crossed the river or something like that so perhaps it is a little surprising that the 'er' spelling ever came about in the first place?

Regards,

VCC

The (limited) resources I have to hand give the derivation as hart (deer) + ford. However, spellings did not settle for several centuries, long after the pronunciation was settled, so variations are common. However, the one group that did settle reasonably early were place names (and to a lesser extent, personal names) since there was a need to have uniformity there. What could easily happen (and obviously did in the case of Hertford) was that the spelling reflected an older form - Hertford, since the 'ar' sound used to be represented by 'er'. A glance at any edition of Chaucer with the original spellings will show this.

Spellings in 'normal' written English took very much longer to settle - not really till the rise of widely available books and newspapers in the 19th Century. Her's the title page of the 1598 quarto of a Shakespeare play:

A
PLEASANT
Conceited Comedie
CALLED
Loues labors lo∫t
As it vvas pre∫ented before her Highnes
this la∫t Christmas.

Newly corrected and augmented
By W. Shake∫pere.


Note that there was not yet a separate V in English - it was still a consonantal form of U, and both symbols were interchageable, so that W is literally a 'double-U' - VV. There were also two forms of small S - the short (s) and long (∫). There are no apostrophes - the habit of using them started only about this time and it still with us.

Interesting, isn't it?

[Pabmusic]

All fascinating stuff indeed. Thanks to all.

As regards Hertford (UK), what would be interesting to know is whether the Hartford spelling ever existed. Or whether the hart (animal) was ever spelled hert. Or, possibly, whether the connection with the animal at the ford is in this case unsubstantiated and the derivation is from elsewhere.

I wonder why Berkhamstead is the odd one out....

Old English heort, Middle English (up to & incl Chaucer) hert.

Remember though that Chaucer (and the like) would have pronounced hert as 'hart' (though quite how it sounded we can't be sure) - the change in spelling didn't mean a change in pronunciation. Any changes in pronunciation usually reflect a later misunderstanding. Berkhamstead (and some other places) simply developed differently from Hertford - there was no central control of any of this - perhaps someone thought it sounded fashionable and it stuck.

I'm not so confident about the Anglo-Saxon (i.e.: Old English) - heort looks to me as if it is the same word as heorte (heart - another 'old' pronunciation, by the way) but I'm not sure about the connexion. AS pronunciation is a book in itself. The Norman invasion interfered with both spellings and pronunciation. A good example is the AS suffix -burȝ (hill, or fortified place), that was also spelt -burh, -byrig, -byrh and more. Norman scribes didn't use the AS letter yogh (ȝ - the guttural ch in loch) and replaced it with -burgh, -bury, -bry, borough, brough and the like. They also didn't use the guttural sound anyway, which is why there are so many 'translated' versions of it. The Normans got hold of cnyȝt (pronounced cu-ni-ȝ-t) and turned it into knight, because they could handle that better; likewise cynyg and cwen became king and queen. The Scots have done best at preserving AS pronunciations - just consider words like niȝt (night) and briȝt (bright).

[Mr Stoat]

What about Hartford (with an A) in Cheshire?

[Pabmusic]

What about Hartford (with an A) in Cheshire?

I don't know, but consider this - Hertford in Herts was a major town, on a major route, whereas Hartford in Cheshire probably wasn't. It's quite possible, then, that Hertford's spelling became established earlier than Hartford's. I wonder how Hartford appears in the Domesday Book?

[Edit]

The entry in the Domesday Book (1086) is: "Herford: Gilbert de Venables. Salthouse, ½ derelict salthouse." So, it was Herford, but changed to the new spelling. Trendy place.

[Magnificat]

[QUOTE=Pabmusic;245997] Berkhamstead (and some other places) simply developed differently from Hertford - there was no central control of any of this - perhaps someone thought it sounded fashionable and it stuck.QUOTE]

Pabmusic,

Thanks for all the edification. Just one small point: Berkhamsted is so spelt - Lord knows why as other local places ending with 'stead' have the 'a'?

VCC

[Pabmusic]

[QUOTE=Magnificat;246166]

Berkhamstead (and some other places) simply developed differently from Hertford - there was no central control of any of this - perhaps someone thought it sounded fashionable and it stuck.QUOTE]

Pabmusic,

Thanks for all the edification. Just one small point: Berkhamsted is so spelt - Lord knows why as other local places ending with 'stead' have the 'a'?

VCC

Thanks - I'd not noticed that. The usual reasons for spelling differences are ignorance or a mistake that has become accepted over time