Mr. Brightside said:
Sean951 said:
JaceArveduin said:
I have a legitimate question:
How the fuck do you get "kernal" out of "colonel". I know it might not be pronounced like that everywhere, but I'm rather curious to see if any of you know, and how that bit ended up in the language to begin with.
How do you get "leftenant" out of lieutenant?
Because in old French lieu was luef.
Might it be German rather than French, since the French way of saying it sounds like Lieu-Teh-nan
Actually from Wiki:
Etymology
The word lieutenant derives from French; the lieu meaning "in place" as in a position (cf. in lieu of); and tenant meaning "holding" as in "holding a position"; thus a "lieutenant" is somebody who holds a position in the absence of his or her superior (compare the Latin locum tenens). Similar words in other languages include the Arabic mulāzim (Arabic: ملازم‎
, meaning "holding a place", and the Hebrew word segen (Hebrew: סגן‎
, meaning "deputy" or "second to".
In the 19th century, British writers who either considered this word an imposition on the English language, or difficult for common soldiers and sailors, argued for it to be replaced by the calque "steadholder." However, their efforts failed, and the French word is still used, along with its many variations, (e.g. lieutenant colonel, lieutenant general, lieutenant commander, flight lieutenant, second lieutenant and many non-English-language examples), in both the Old and the New World.
[edit] Pronunciation
Pronunciation of lieutenant is generally split between the forms /lɛfˈtɛnənt/ (lef-ten-ənt) and /ljuːˈtɛnənt/ ( listen) (lew-ten-ənt), with the former generally associated with the United Kingdom, Ireland and Commonwealth countries, and the latter generally associated with the United States.[1] The earlier history of the pronunciation is unclear; Middle English spellings suggest that the /l(j)uː-/ and /lɛf-/ pronunciations existed even then.[2] The rare Old French variant spelling luef for Modern French lieu ('place') supports the suggestion that a final [w] of the Old French word was in certain environments perceived as an [f].[2]
In Royal Naval tradition?and other English-speaking navies outside the United States?the intermediate pronunciation /ləˈtɛnənt/ was preserved. This is not recognized as current by the OED, however, and by 1954 the Royal Canadian Navy, at least, regarded it as "obsolescent" even while regarding "the army's 'LEF-tenant'" to be "a corruption of the worst sort".[3]
So actually we're both kind of right.
Honestly most of those things don't bother me. Say it however you want just have a brain in your head, thats all I ask for in a conversation partner. I think people who get overly hung up on grammar tend to be trying to look smarter than thay actually are.
