Re: Soft "g" before "a"

On Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:52:28 +0200, James Hogg <Jas.Hogg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Quoth "Guy Barry" <guy.barry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, and I quote:


"James Hogg" <Jas.Hogg@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3m49b5phlcoeus8sekto8emvp4qq6dqdsh@xxxxxxxxxx

There are two anomalies here, but I'll assume that you mean the
"margarine" one.

The only reasonable explanation for the current pronunciation is
that some people spelled the word "margerine" and pronounced it
accordingly. The OED doesn't list this spelling, but I have found
it on Google Books in publications from the 1850s, predating the
earliest OED example of "margarine", which is from 1873.

Thanks. I'm aware that there was an earlier pronunciation with a hard "g"
but it's rarely heard now.

Or did you mean the soft "g" in "gaol"?

I meant the "margarine" one, but I'm quite curious about "gaol" as well!
It's a doubly anomalous spelling, because I'm not aware of the digraph "ao"
appearing in any other word - it doesn't really look like an English word at
all. And of course it can be easily misprinted as "goal", which may have
led to its downfall.

It all goes back to a sound change in Old French that did not
happen in Normandy. Palatalisation of velars before "a" did not
affect the French that the Normans brought to English, but
England was later influenced by the French of Paris where the
sound change did occur. That's why we have two variants of what
was originally the same word in Norman-derived "catch" and
Central French "chase". In the case of "gaol" we have a spelling
that reflects the Norman word (gaiole, gayolle, gaole) while the
pronunciation is that of the Central French word (jaiole, jaole,
jeole, geole), better reflected by the spelling "jail".

I see from the OED that one old spelling of "gaol" was "gayhole". There
might be a few prisons for which that could be an appropriate spelling.

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
.

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