I recently visited Southwold, UK, which is the namesake of Southold, NY. You may notice that although one place is named for the other, the names are spelled differently.
Southwold seemingly takes its name from geography. A "wold" is a collection of hills over a chalk base and Southwold is in the southern part of East Anglia.
Southold, NY is neither located in a wold nor in a particularly southerly location.
It is likely that the spelling of the name changed because "Southold" is easier to say that "Southwold." Additionally, the geographical position described by "Southwold" is meaningless in "Southold" so there is no longer any need to strictly stick to that spelling.
The literal meaning of "Southwold" may be "a southern wold" but to the people who moved to New York it clearly meant something more. It meant "home." So they created a home away from home. They didn't move to another "southern wold" but they did move to Southold.
The sound has become the sense. The word has evolved to mean something other than what it originally meant and so spelling it the way it sounds becomes more important than spelling it in a way that illuminates the meaning.
Showing posts with label spelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spelling. Show all posts
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Tickets To Where?
England is bursting with examples of how the spoken word and the written word evolve at a different pace.
One of the main and obvious differences between the spoken word and the written word is permanence. This will come up often as we discuss sound and sense, because believe it or not, the ephemeral nature of the spoken word can be a very good thing. If you have ever had a teacher collect a note you were passing in class, you may know what I mean.
As a word is used, the way that people pronounce it changes. Maybe it is hard to say, so they slur it into something easier. Maybe the change is based on a mixing of cultures causing a change of accent. You will recall that in many of the world's languages, the written word is meant to reflect the pronunciation of the spoken word. So, does spelling really change with pronunciation?
Since I am currently living in Norwich (which rhymes with porridge) I can definitively state that the written word is not keeping up. Other examples of deceptively spelled place names in England include: Wymondham (pronounced 'win-dom'), Leicester (pronounced 'les-ter'), and Grosvenor (pronounced 'grove-ner').
Spelling is standardized. We have dictionaries telling us exactly how words are spelled, and there is only one right way to do it. It is one thing for a group of people to subtly pronounce a word differently, until over time, they've left out an entire syllable. It is something else to take a word everyone agrees on the spelling of and start leaving letters out of it. So eventually, the spoken and written word pull apart until they hardly resemble one another at all. And since the written word was based on the spoken word in the first place, its connection with meaning becomes tenuous. When an American tourist asks for train tickets to 'Why-mond-ham' the British rail worker doesn't know where he wants to go.
One of the main and obvious differences between the spoken word and the written word is permanence. This will come up often as we discuss sound and sense, because believe it or not, the ephemeral nature of the spoken word can be a very good thing. If you have ever had a teacher collect a note you were passing in class, you may know what I mean.
As a word is used, the way that people pronounce it changes. Maybe it is hard to say, so they slur it into something easier. Maybe the change is based on a mixing of cultures causing a change of accent. You will recall that in many of the world's languages, the written word is meant to reflect the pronunciation of the spoken word. So, does spelling really change with pronunciation?
Since I am currently living in Norwich (which rhymes with porridge) I can definitively state that the written word is not keeping up. Other examples of deceptively spelled place names in England include: Wymondham (pronounced 'win-dom'), Leicester (pronounced 'les-ter'), and Grosvenor (pronounced 'grove-ner').
Spelling is standardized. We have dictionaries telling us exactly how words are spelled, and there is only one right way to do it. It is one thing for a group of people to subtly pronounce a word differently, until over time, they've left out an entire syllable. It is something else to take a word everyone agrees on the spelling of and start leaving letters out of it. So eventually, the spoken and written word pull apart until they hardly resemble one another at all. And since the written word was based on the spoken word in the first place, its connection with meaning becomes tenuous. When an American tourist asks for train tickets to 'Why-mond-ham' the British rail worker doesn't know where he wants to go.
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