Re: (YA?)English Orthography Question

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:53:49 -0400, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:

>Why is it that the English word meaning "more dry" is usually spelled
>"drier" while the word that means "thing that dries" is usually
>spelled "dryer"?  Is there something in the etymology of the two -er
>endings to explain such a preference, or is it random?
I doubt it's a difference between the -er endings.  My stab at an
explanation would be that "dryer" for the machine is a newer word than
"drier" the comparative, and the rule
  final <y> alternates with non-final (non-onset) <i>
just isn't so active as it once was.  That with a large dollop of randomness.

[...]
>Likewise with fry, pry, try; we have the reverse case with "wry"
Do we?  In Google _wrier_ beats _wryer_ by a factor of six.  (And I think I
have "wrier" as opposed to "more wry" for the comparative of wry, but you
probably shouldn't believe me on that.)

Alex

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