British English: Why Left-Tennant?
 

I could Wikipedia this but it's so much more fun to get takes from FodorBrits -

Isn't Lieutennant spelled exactly like that but prounced Left-Tennant?

I can speculate on the derivation of Left-Tennant - an aide standing on the left

But Lieu in French means place, not left

Why do Brits pronouce the word Lieutennant Left-tennant?

makes no sense - seems they should spell it Lefttennant but in books it's always lieutennant?

Baffled in Tunsbridge

That would be lieutenant

There is no such thing as 'British' English.

It's just 'English'.

And I think the answer is taht it's Old French.

OK Americans speaking English say Lieutennant like it was written

Canadians and Brits when speaking English say left tennant and i can't figure out why as they indeed spell it lieutennant???

Sheila - we were posting at same time so i didn't see you answer before i responded to RM.

I don't think it has anything to do with the word "left".
I imagine it's just a corruption of the old French pronunciation (like Beauchamp or Saint Jean or so many others...)
I believe that in the US in the 19th Century there was a strong trend (thanks to Mr Webster) to regularise spellings and pronunciations, which might well explain the slightly more regular US pronunciation.

We don't have to explain why English is spoken the way it is: the burden of explanation lies with speakers of odd foreign dialects

Why, for example, on the wrong side of the Atlantic do they pronounce lieutenant (= "place holder") as if it were spelt "lootenant"?

And why can't they spell it right?

And why can't they spell it right?

cause i didn't go to Public School?

An American is staying at a hotel in London and goes to the front desk to ask where the elevator is.

The man at the desk says, ``Sir, the lift is directly on your left.''

This annoys the American, who repeats his question about the elevator.

The Londoner says, ``As I mentioned, Sir, the lift is right over there, on your left.''

The Amercian says, ``Look Buddy, Americans invented the elevator, and I know what its called.''

The Brit says, ``Yes sir, but we invented the language.''

If there is one thing that sends me mad is to have an American correct my pronounciation.

I was once reliably informed that Italian was pronounced Eye-talian, and master pronounced "Meeaahsturrr" or some such nonesense.

Fume!!!

ih-talian is the way educated Americans pronounce it

Anglos may have invented the language and English colonization spread it

but it's only America's importance in the world that makes it now the world's language - Brits went along for the ride

If U.S. had been Spanish speaking or French, English would be like Dutch - spoken only in England and perhaps not even Ecosse or Eire

Get out of bed on the wrong side today, Bob?

I think you are right about Brit English being in its position due to history but I don't think that is purely a US driven effect but merely the logic of the two key super powers in a row (British Empire and USA) speaking vitually the same language.

I think this actual pronunciation is covered by the US author who wrote about walking along the Appelation way (now I just know I spelt that wrong and I pronounce it the French way) anyway check out Bill Bryson "Made in America"

"but it's only America's importance in the world that makes it now the world's language - Brits went along for the ride"

Tosh and piffle.

The USA didn't stick it's nose outside its borders until 1941, and you are going to take credit for Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria, South Africa etc etc etc?

The Lowland Scots have always spoken a dialect of English.

Ireland speaks English because of the Americans? LMAO!

America came onto the scene YESTERDAY

you're trying to say "thanks to america" for english? what?
I've never seen so many mis-spelt signs as in the states.

Besides that, it's quite bad that a lot of beautiful languages are dying out or being pushed to the side, or under-prioritised as the world scrabbles to compete in the English-speaking world of commerce.

RM67 - David Crystal may disagree with you.

For everyone else only the Americans use orthography as a guide to pronunciation of this word. And as usual they do this because of Webster.

Bloody Noah Webster - no respect for the origins of words, no thought for Latin or Greek just change a whole language's spelling for the sake of politics.

waring, sadly, has fallen lock stock and barrel for American nationalistic propaganda.

The United Stares has been sticking its nose where it's got no bloody business practically since the day the slave owners decided to make their part of North America safe for keeping slaves and wiping out Indians.

From the next hundred years of (successful) unprovoked aggression on North America's indigenous population, to the (catastrophically unsuccessful) unprovoked aggression on Britain in 1812, there was

Well i think i either wrote in a tone taken too seriously when it should have been sarcastic

in reality the great cultural influence of Great Britain and the United States and Canada and Aussies and Aucklanders - all prosperous wealthy states - the cohesion of all makes English the international language it is today.

fueled now by American culture - films, TV, etc and music - and not forget English rock-and-roll

I've always consider U.K. and North America one cultural block and the most important such one in the world

Anyway thank God English has become the world's defact language of communication, even in all its variances - the printed word, with a few minor exceptions like liuetenant, being the same everywhere.

a succession of uninvited visits. Sometimes, like the Soviets, masquerading as bailing out neighbours. But most often, simply beinmg honest.

The Halls of Tripoli (early 1800s). Cuba. Mexico. The Philippines. America's rarely been backwatd at coming forward.

I was sure that there was one case of "lootenant" on our side of the water (one of the armed forces but not the other). But according to the OED I'm wrong:

" The origin of the beta type of forms [="lef"] (which survives in the usual British pronunciation, though the spelling represents the alpha type ["lew"]) is difficult to explain. The hypothesis of a mere misinterpretation of the graphic form (u read as v), at first sight plausible, does not accord with the facts. In view of the rare OF. form luef for lieu (with which cf. esp. the 15th c. Sc. forms luf-, lufftenand above) it seems likely that the labial glide at the end of OF. lieu as the first element of a compound was sometimes apprehended by Englishmen as a v or f. Possibly some of the forms may be due to association with LEAVE n.1 or LIEF a.
In 1793 Walker gives the actual pronunciations as (lv-, lvtnnt), but expresses the hope that ‘the regular sound, lewtenant’ will in time become current. In England this pronunciation (ljutnnt) is almost unknown. A newspaper quot. of 1893 in Funk's Standard Dictionary says that (lftnnt) is in the U.S. ‘almost confined to the retired list of the navy’.] "

...actually when I once asked the question I was told the letter "u" is simply a corruption of the original letter "v" and by accident what should be lievtenant became written as lieutenant but it retained its original prononciation.

PatrickLondon: what was that about a "labial glide"? This is getting downright kinky.

<<< The USA didn't stick it's nose outside its borders until 1941 >>>

It's a actually one of the causes of 1776 and all that - the colonials wanted to "Go West Young Man" beyond the boundaries of the 12 colonies but the British had done deals with the real locals to stay behind those borders

"But Lieu in French means place, not left"


You are quite right
Lieutenant comes from "lieu" (place) - which was never pronounced left in old French and "tenant" or "tenant lieu de" i.e. replacing the chief when necessary.
Nothing to do with right and left.

Maintaining my offended tone.

It's very easy to be the world's largest economy and stamp about the globe like an overgrown four year old if you have almost an entire continent previously inhabited by stone age tribes (no offence to Native Americans)handed to you on a plate.

In any case, you speak English, you have an English system of law and law enforcement, an English military system, your constitution and government is inspired by the English, your (allegedly)free market economy is based on the English system and your founding fathers were English in the main, and the majority of your population adheres to English religious denominations and the English remain your largest foreign investor.

Cheers mate!

On the LP site, 'Speaking in Tongues' branch, every such question is dissected and analyzed in a flash.

waring - well said

i think England should become the 52nd state, after Canada!

As for Scotland and N Eire - well they can fend for themselves since they don't have that great English tradition like we do (even though anglo-saxons are a minority in the colonies these days)

Welcome aboard and you will finally have a written Constitution, thank God and no more Queenie, thank God

Okey Dokie...

Why pronounce Aluminum - Al-loo-men-e-um. Why every rite thinkin person in the world knows there ain't no extra i in it.

:-)

dave

I concede on aluminum, the Septics have it right, I just can't bring myself to pronounce it like that, like saying skedule for schedule, where again, the Septic pronounciation is more logical.

Bob

The expression has fallen out of use, but the UK used to be referred to as US Airstrip One.

Why isn't the US part of the Commonwealth? You qualify you know.

Better idea, the US becomes part of Canada and you get to dump your laughing stock presidential system.

easy - US is not part of Commonwealth because the Consitution forbades giving into any higher authority than our President - the Chief

To join Commonwealth we would have to swear fidelity to Queenie i believe and this is not possible.

We may swear at Queenie but not swear any oath to her.

The U.S. President never bows to Queenie or any other monarch you know - never.

Red herring Bob,

In joining the Commonwealth you swear allegiance to Queen Betty no more than you would to the Secretary General of the UN.

There are separate monarchies within the organisation.

Come on! You know you want to.....

"Why pronounce Aluminum - Al-loo-men-e-um. Why every rite thinkin person in the world knows there ain't no extra i in it."

Actually, daveesl, this IS an extra "i" in the way the British spell the word! It took me a year of living in the UK to answer THAT question, but, "over there" it is spelled "aluminium" - I guess that could be another thread!

<<< i think England should become the 52nd state, after Canada! >>>

60 million people, 90% of whom are politically left of Hilary Clinton, a minimum of 8 Senate seats, 90 Congressional seats...

Republicans wouldn't be in power for at least a generation

Aluminum is written aluminium in my Oxford dictionary, and in my van Dale for that matter.

Why do so many Americans pronounce laboratory labratory, and nuclear as nukiller?

Someone once said that Britain and the United States are two countried divided by a common language.

Lighten (or left-en) up, folks.

Actually we can go off on this in many different directions...

Why the extra u in words such as honor, color, labor?? Me thinks the US has it right on that one, don't you?

Also the singular and plural bit...you know in sports....we would say New York is winning 3-1....I have heard many Canadians and so probably many Brits saying New York are winning 3-1....

Then there is the last letter in the alphabet which the whole English speaking world calls zed...except we Yanks who call it zee.

But you have to give us some credit...we have kept the outdated English system of measurements with such archaic units as inches, feet, pounds, ounces alive....all you guys have maintained is miles and your friendly eu is not very happy about that (didn't I read somewhere that some merchant was fined for selling something using English units rather than metric units?)...and then again we still use Farenheit...and we still have our major currency unit as a nice crispy banknote unlike our English cousins who have no paper money less than 5 quid (BTW I'm not necessarily a proponent of that).....

But really these things can be discussed in good fun and not turn so serious as some of the posts did...I kid my Canadian friends all the time about some of these things (such as putting eh at the end of each sentence and pronouncing words such as out and about closer to (but not the same as) oot and aboot (I can recognize a Canadian 100 meters oops 100 yards away just from those 2 words, eh)...

So let's lighten up on this and have some fun with it rather than allow the censors to cut the thread which I am afraid they are liable to do if we keep it up.

hetismij...

I know of only one person who can't properly pronounce the word nuclear (I'll give you a hint...his initials are GWB)

"Someone once said that Britain and the United States are two countried divided by a common language."

Someone else said that Britain and the US are two countries divided by the Atlantic Ocean.

I can't be bothered finding a reference but aluminum was aluminum and the English added the additional "I" later to conform with calcium, radium etc.

The dropping of the "U" in honour, colour etc was intentional on the part of American Lexicographers and was part of a half baked attempt at making spelling more logical. (cough, through, bough, I ask you!)

We have lite and nite through shear illiteracy.

"Leftenant, your patrol is behind shedule"!

Cracks me up everytime I here it!