1544: Vittle vs Victual Mar 6, 2019

English spelling often is not clearly related to the pronunciation, and while this is an acknowledged nuisance, there have been times when this is done, if not intentionally, then incidentally counterproductively. In the past for instance, the word 'victual' was written as 'vittle', and given that 'vittle' does rhyme with 'little' and 'tittle', this pattern makes a lot of sense. However, 'victual' with the addition of the notable C especially mirrors the original Latin 'victualis'. In Latin however, the sounds represented by the spelling would have been more or less pronounced.

To see more about the history of writing, click here: https://youtu.be/dntJLHmkfhw

To support Word Facts, go to Patreon.com/wordfacts

Previous
Previous

1545: The Most Tonal Languages Mar 7, 2019

Next
Next

1543: tantalize Mar 5, 2019