Re: (YA?)English Orthography Question

Den 13. okt. 2008 kl. 14.53 skreiv Mark J. Reed:

> 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 also see "flyer" more than "flier", but since the adjective "fly"
> doesn't often appear in the comparative it's hard to look for
> analogous distribution.
>
> The guy with the bell and the "hear ye, hear ye" is the town crier,
> not the town cryer.  But I have seen parents refer to their babies as
> "a real/not much of a cryer". Here there's no homographic adjective.
> Likewise with fry, pry, try; we have the reverse case with "wry" but I
> think its comparative is usually "more wry" anyway.
I suppose part of this is due to the confusion that set in when the
English stopped rounding their y's. This is a lesson to all of us
naturalistic conworlders - we should have some of this stuff in our
conscripts. Urianian has some, as they started using Roman letters
during the imperial time. Parallel to the English case we have for
example the devoicing of the voiced palatal fricative, which merges
with the formerly unvoiced palatal fricative, but is still written
with a _j_ in some personal and place names.

LEF