As students return to schools and spelling tests, they might wonder why newspapers deviate from the English language that teachers drill into them.
Western Producer reader Alice Wilson, of Carnduff, Sask., pointed out a story that contained a mixture of spelling.
“You are publishing a paper printed in the English language. Therefore the spelling should be in English. Centre is the French spelling for center and kilometre is the French spelling for kilometer. When you mix the two languages in one paragraph you have jargon. The French would say, ‘It is le jargon or le patois.'”
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Wilson is correct, we DO mix spellings: mainly, American and British. Kilometre and centre are actually the British spelling of the words: the ‘er’ is the American contribution to the English language. The Americans also influenced us to drop the ‘u’ from such words as neighbour.
But Wilson is correct that the French influenced our language. Many English words are derived from the French language… which often goes back to Latin.
The problem is, the complicated English language doesn’t always follow its own rules, and has been transformed over several thousand years.
Perhaps Geoffrey Chaucer, in the 1300s, said it best:
And for ther is so gret diversite
In Englissh and in writyng of oure tonge
So prey I God that non myswrite the,
Ne the mysmetre for defaute of tonge.
Sometimes the words familiar to us look completely different elsewhere.
For example, our North American newspapers and history textbooks carried stories of Pearl Harbor being bombed during the Second World War.
Across the ocean, the British newspapers carried the grim news in huge headlines: Peal Harbour had been bombed.
So, what style DO we use? Next week’s column: CP Style.
