Re: CHAT: sch

[SCHEDULE - formerly: SCEDULE]
At 9:51 pm +0000 25/3/00, And Rosta wrote:
>Muke Tever:
>> >> Sometimes /S/ is used instead, as in "schedule" /SEdjul/; in America this
>> >> is /skEdZ@l/.
>> >
>> >I don't understand anything about this one. Why the <h>? Why /sk/? Why /S/?
Indeed, why the {h}? Shakespeare spelled it 'scedule'.

[...]
>
>It is possible that this simply an irregular spelling, and indeed an
>irregular pronunciation, which does happen with vocab borrowed into ModE, tho
>not normally.
I suspect the borrowing goes back to the middle English period, since the
word was borrowed from Old French 'cedule' (almost the same in modern
French, except an acute is now written on the first {e}).

>But I was hoping that one of our many pedants and omniscients
>would know whether the spelling or pronunciation is irregular; it wouldn't be
>if the word were from Greek (which I believe it not to be, but can't check
>right now).
It is ultimately from the Greek 'skhede:' - but not a direct borrowing.
The French is from late Latin 'scedula' which is a diminutive of 'sc(h)eda'
= "a strip of papyrus".  'Tis the latter which was derived from the Greek
form.

The Shakespearean spelling was obviously influenced by the Latin one; one
would've expected this to be also the modern spelling & the word to be
/'sEdjUl/ or /'sEdZ@l/ - but it ain't.

Not being omniscient, I don't know when the {h} was first introduced.  I
guess it was post-Renaissance as Greek came to be more widely studied once
more and that some one wanted to show how clever he was in knowing its
Greek origin.

My guess is that both /'SEdjUL/ (or /'SEdZ@l/ etc) and /'skEDZ@l/ etc are
_both_ later _spelling_ pronunciations.  The former looks suspicially as
tho there might've been German influence.  Does anyone know if Prince
Albert might havve been responsible for the (former) popularity of the /S/
pronunciation in the UK?
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[SCHISM]
This also was not a direct borrowing from Greek.  It was borrowed from Old
French 'cisme' or 'scisme' which in turn came from late Latin 'sc(h)isma'.
The word, like '(s)cedule' above, was obviously  a "learned word" as the
French form did not follow the path of 'crisma' --> 'crême' - but that is
hardly surprising  :)

The spelling {sc} was, of course, re-inforced in this word by supposed
connexion with Latin 'scindere' (to cut), supine: 'scissum'.  And probably
continuing false association with the Latin word helped the pronunciation
to remain /sIzm=/ even after some pedant put an {h} into the word to show
its ultimate derivation from Greek 'skhisma'.  The pronunciation /skIzm=/
is obviously a spelling pronunciation and, I believe, of fairly modern
origin.

Why has /SIzm=/ never caught on?  Maybe it wasn't much used by Prince Albert?

Ray.




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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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