The word comes ultimately from the Latin salmon, but we got it by way of French, as we did with so many other food words. The French, as was their wont, had swallowed up the Latin L in their pronunciation, so by the time we English borrowed the word, it was saumon, no L in the spelling and so no L in the pronunciation.
The word comes ultimately from the Latin salmon, but we got it by way of French, as we did with so many other food words. The French, as was their wont, had swallowed up the Latin L in their pronunciation, so by the time we English borrowed the word, it was saumon, no L in the spelling and so no L in the pronunciation.
Pronouncing the word based on how another language says it
French influence on English is rather unique in this regard. French was the language of the upper class, so an effort was made for English to sound more French when possible.
My favorite example of how this has carried into modern day is the expressions “cordial reception” and “hearty welcome.” They both effectively mean the same thing, but the first, which is latin-derived, sounds fancy, while the second, which is germanic-derived, sounds more informal.
For people whose childhood didn’t have an internet, it makes sense. Many are more comfortable getting information the way they used to. Even though I grew up in the 80s, I prefer to avoid having to interact with people when possible, so being able to use the internet for information was a godsend.
This is how we would talk if English were more like German. Why invent new words when we can just combine old ones? Glove = hand shoe, turtle = shield toad, raccoon = wash bear, etc.
While pattern-seeking will indeed help you to avoid predators (and connect imagery to extremely over-memed webcomics), it’s also useful for so much more!
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