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 ». Search This Blog. Friday, July 24, What the F is an F doing in "lieutenant"? As I mentioned last week, as a result of my CBC interview about Stuart McLean's pronunciations of "schedule" and "raspberry" , I've had a number of queries about other pronunciations.
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.
Asked 10 years, 9 months ago. Active 4 months ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. Justin Morgan Justin Morgan 1 1 gold badge 5 5 silver badges 6 6 bronze badges. The members of the Army and Royal Air Force say "lef-tenant", but in the Royal Navy that's a solecism "loo-tenant" there.
BrianHooper I am not sure that is exactly correct. I recall when joining the Canadian Navy back in the seventies that the pronunciation was more like "le tenant" or "luh tenant", not sure how to write it, and followed Royal Navy usage, so it was essentially a third way to pronounce the word.
By the way I was a sub-lieutenant so did pay some attention to how to pronounce and especially how the captain pronounced it BrianHooper Every member of the Royal Navy I've met a considerable number, from a wide variety of branches has pronounced it 'lef-tenant'. Show 4 more comments. Active Oldest Votes.
Improve this answer. Jon Purdy Jon Purdy It's simply an attempt for English speakers to pronunce French phonemes, I don't believe there's an additional reason. The word appeared in English as "lieutenant", and an alternative "leftenant" was made to stick to the pronunciation. The pronunciation being very difficult for English speaker.
The "lefttenant" doesn't exist in French, at least, I didn't find it, I will search further. Old French is not one language, it's a bunch of dialects. And lieutenant means place keeper lit. In Spanish and Portuguese, they dropped the lieu [lugar], and kept teniente and tenente, respectively.
I fail to see how that f business survived Middle French Add a comment. Decapitated Soul Decapitated Soul 16k 10 10 gold badges 68 68 silver badges bronze badges. Community Bot 1. It's an achaic spelling in English, but not in French. This spelling was to stick to the pronunciation, and not the opposite, as there is not "lefttenant" in old French. My copy of the OED says: The origin of the beta type of forms which survives in the usual British proununciation, though the spelling represents the alpha type is difficult to explain.
So it's clear variants of both were in use in England in the 14th century. Ben Ben 2, 13 13 silver badges 15 15 bronze badges. Of course- this is opinion and I have been wrong before. It was in I believe Harry Nash Harry Nash 1.
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