Friday, July 15, 2011

The Language of Confusion: Why isn’t it “Firey”?


Seriously, why isn’t it? Why switch the e and the r for that one word? And if "firey" is no good, then why don't we just replace the e with a y, like in wiry? Is there a reason?

Fire didn’t always used to be spelled fire. It comes from the Old English fyr (I think it would rhyme with Tyr) and when Old became Middle, they changed a lot of vowels around and the y became ie. For a few centuries, anyway.

Before about 1200 CE, the word was spelled fier (okay, it’s starting to make more sense now) Then, Old English gave way to Middle English. For about four hundred years, there was a war between the spellings, because really, in the sixteenth century people just spelled things the way they felt like it. Eventually, people started collaborating on universal spelling for English and "Fire" emerged as the preferred choice, which lasted into our Modern English language. But fier remained alive in the adjective form of the word. Which for some reason, they did not change.

Dang. I hate it when there’s a logical explanation. Well, mostly logical. Language evolution is weird.

Thanks to the Online Etymology Dictionary and the great Creighton University article on Middle English.

7 comments:

  1. "because really, in the sixteenth century people just spelled things the way they felt like it"

    There was this show that was made about a decade ago--"The Story of English". What struck me about the show was how quickly English changed in the sixteenth century. And how they battled over standardized spelling.

    Thanks for reminding me.

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  2. This makes me wonder: Since people tend to spell however they want to on the internet, will we go back to the 16th century non-consensus?

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  3. That's so interesting. ^_^

    I love learning how words and spelling evolved over time.

    Have a great weekend!

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  4. That's so interesting. ^_^

    I love learning how words and spelling evolved over time.

    Have a great weekend!

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  5. Ha! Very curious, JE. I'm just glad they made a final decision. I'd hate to have to change my book series from "Dance on Fire" to something else now. Lol!

    -Jimmy

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  6. Good question indeed..

    I used that word to describe my MC in a pitch yesterday and was wondering the same thing, lol...

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  7. Language evolution is very weird. So many words have spellings that don't make any sense at all. :P

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Please validate me.