Why do they pronounce lieutenant leftenant

First up: lieutenant and colonel. Now the question is, why do some people say loo tenant and others lef tenant? Loo tenant is closer to the Old French pronunciation, but right from our earliest evidence, in the s and s, we have spellings that indicate that both pronunciations existed.

Probably the English had a hard time pronouncing French, or they may have confused lieu with the English word they already knew, "leave" Or they confused the written "u" with a "v.

For whatever reason, the " loo -" version died out of British English but survived in American English, which tends to maintain older pronunciations, for example " herb ". Since Americans were the founders of Canadian English when the Loyalists moved here, we also inherited " loo tenant" But the Canadian Forces have always been strongly influenced by the British, so lef tenant is the official pronunciation there.

Canadian English is not simple! What do YOU say? English pronunciation must drive second-language learners mad! When the French borrowed this word, they had a hard time saying "colonel" with two "l"'s though they manage to do it now. So the first "l" got changed to an "r" and they ended up with coronel , which is what got borrowed into English in the s and then scrunched down in the pronunciation to ker-nel.

But then in the s people looked at the origin of the word and changed the spelling back to "colonel" to reflect it, but the pronunciation stuck. If you find the English language fascinating, you might enjoy regular updates about English usage and word origins from Wordlady. Receive every new post delivered right to your inbox! Just know that the writers have done their research. And with a British cast, of course, they were going to read the words out as they know them.

Which words throw you off when you hear them? Share your thoughts in the comments below. More from Opinion. Claire and Jamie 1 year Grading the Outlander Season 5 episodes. Streaming More Netflix News ». More Amazon News ».

View all Streaming Sites. More Movie News ». More FS Movie News ». Taylor Roberts, a linguist in Toronto who studied at York University, said the two pronunciations have also more in common than you might think. He added, however, that they are willing to change their tune if it better reflects the reality of contemporary Canadian English. For Hollingsworth, change is already past due.

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