On 07.01.2023 04:21, Ross Clark wrote:

>Actually we little children called it "silent e" if we called it anything.

Also in numerous surnames & 1st names, e.g. Clarke, Greene, O'Toole,
Brooke, Drake, Boone, Boyle, Doyle, Jake, Lorne, Luke, Caine, Laine,
Chalke, Combe, *gue, *hue, *hoe, Hoare, Hoyte, Home/Hume (whereas
-ham: Nottingham, Tottenham etc; the rest of them -hams in Bavaria
and Austria :-)), Joule (but this is French), Keefe, Lane, Lowe, Meade,
Moore, Wolfe, Payne, Peake, Wayne, Scarfe, Scaife, Sharpe, Steele, Tyne,
Veale, Yoe (this one, I assume, variant of Yeo(man)). (...)

Presumably, most of these -e's are French and other (Romance or Celtic)
"etymological" remnants. Or having only "ornamental" reasons (in other
epochs). Irish O'Toole could have been spelled O'Tool, since in the
original there is no final -e: Tuathal. And -oo- represents a "con-
tracted" -uatha-. (BTW: it seems that Celtic tuath stays in the cognate
relationship with "teuta, diut, teut..." then "Deutsch" and "Dutch".
All of them meaning "people" in the sense of "populus, population,
a mass," which in German has been replaced by "Volk", since "Deutsch"
and "Teutsch" only have been used as ethnonyms for over 800 years now.
Celtic god's name Teutates/Toutatis also contains this word.)

Tim

On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 7:21:25 PM UTC-8, benl...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
> On 4/01/2023 4:36 a.m., Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 3:04:29 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
> >> Op 2/01/2023 om 16:26 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
> >>> On Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 12:16:23 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
> >>>> Op 26/12/2022 om 18:38 schreef henh...@gmail.com:
> >
> >>>>>> Respite is pronounced: [Res-pit]. The last “e” is silent
> >>>>> (even though it's in the dictionary...) i've never heard the [Respite] pronunciation that rhymes with [Despite]
> >>>>> What's another word with a similar (final) [Silent E] at the end ?
> >>>> Looks like the office-suffice mess.
> >>> Incidentally, the "e" is silent in both those words.
> >>
> >> As in both respite and despite?
> >
> > Yup. (The final e isn't silent in e.g. anemone.)
> >
> > The hen person is using "silent e" to mean what little children
> > learn to call a "helping vowel," the one that marks the vowel before
> > it as "long": create, complete, despite, promote, dispute. (Compare
> > bat bate, pet Pete, bit bite, cot cote, cut cute.) Richard Venezky,
> > who did the best analysis of English orthography, calls this "e" a
> > "marker." He identifies several "markers" in English orthography.
> >
> > (It doesn't work for the other "long/short" pair as in boot/book.)
> Actually we little children called it "silent e" if we called it anything..
>
> I spent a little time looking for more examples of this particular case
> which we might call "useless e" -- unmotivated for the speller and
> misleading for the reader. Here's a longer list (mainly of two-syllable
> words):
>
> respite
> granite
> definite, infinite etc.
> pomegranate
> candidate
> private
> opiate
> curate
> pirate
> senate
> palate
> agate
> minute
>
> olive
> octave
> massive, captive etc
>
> promise, premise, mortise, anise
> purpose
>
> welcome
> awesome, handsome etc.
>
> medicine
> feminine
> heroine
> engine
> famine
> ermine
> urine
> doctrine
> fortune
> missile
> adjs in -ile docile, virile, agile, etc
> gunwale
> capsule
>
> office
> palace
> precipice
> college
> pillage
> adage
> advantage
> message
>
> Some of these probably have alternative pronunciations (as with
> "respite") which would make the -e unproblematic for those who so
> pronounce them.
> The majority would be better spelled without the -e. But we can't do
> that with the -ce and -ge items, in which the -e is doing its other job
> of indicating a "soft" value for the preceding consonant.

thanks for the list.... i couldn't post for almost 2 days and so i sent email to Dr.BenLizro but it was bounced back. ( benlizro@ihug......nz <------ what does BenLizro mean ? )

in case of
> olive
> octave (etc.)

(it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).

oliv
octav

a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov

(or a contraction)

On Sunday, January 8, 2023 at 1:25:46 AM UTC-5, henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 7:21:25 PM UTC-8, benl...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
> > On 4/01/2023 4:36 a.m., Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 3:04:29 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
> > >> Op 2/01/2023 om 16:26 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
> > >>> On Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 12:16:23 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
> > >>>> Op 26/12/2022 om 18:38 schreef henh...@gmail.com:
> > >
> > >>>>>> Respite is pronounced: [Res-pit]. The last “e” is silent
> > >>>>> (even though it's in the dictionary...) i've never heard the [Respite] pronunciation that rhymes with [Despite]
> > >>>>> What's another word with a similar (final) [Silent E] at the end ?
> > >>>> Looks like the office-suffice mess.
> > >>> Incidentally, the "e" is silent in both those words.
> > >>
> > >> As in both respite and despite?
> > >
> > > Yup. (The final e isn't silent in e.g. anemone.)
> > >
> > > The hen person is using "silent e" to mean what little children
> > > learn to call a "helping vowel," the one that marks the vowel before
> > > it as "long": create, complete, despite, promote, dispute. (Compare
> > > bat bate, pet Pete, bit bite, cot cote, cut cute.) Richard Venezky,
> > > who did the best analysis of English orthography, calls this "e" a
> > > "marker." He identifies several "markers" in English orthography.
> > >
> > > (It doesn't work for the other "long/short" pair as in boot/book.)
> > Actually we little children called it "silent e" if we called it anything.
> >
> > I spent a little time looking for more examples of this particular case
> > which we might call "useless e" -- unmotivated for the speller and
> > misleading for the reader. Here's a longer list (mainly of two-syllable
> > words):
> >
> > respite
> > granite
> > definite, infinite etc.
> > pomegranate
> > candidate
> > private
> > opiate
> > curate
> > pirate
> > senate
> > palate
> > agate
> > minute
> >
> > olive
> > octave
> > massive, captive etc
> >
> > promise, premise, mortise, anise
> > purpose
> >
> > welcome
> > awesome, handsome etc.
> >
> > medicine
> > feminine
> > heroine
> > engine
> > famine
> > ermine
> > urine
> > doctrine
> > fortune
> > missile
> > adjs in -ile docile, virile, agile, etc
> > gunwale
> > capsule
> >
> > office
> > palace
> > precipice
> > college
> > pillage
> > adage
> > advantage
> > message
> >
> > Some of these probably have alternative pronunciations (as with
> > "respite") which would make the -e unproblematic for those who so
> > pronounce them.
> > The majority would be better spelled without the -e. But we can't do
> > that with the -ce and -ge items, in which the -e is doing its other job
> > of indicating a "soft" value for the preceding consonant.
> thanks for the list.... i couldn't post for almost 2 days and so i sent email to Dr.BenLizro but it was bounced back. ( benlizro@ihug......nz <------ what does BenLizro mean ? )
>
>
> in case of
> > olive
> > octave (etc.)
>
> (it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).
>
> oliv
> octav
>
> a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov
>
> (or a contraction)

Yes, that's Venezky's third "marker" use of e. English doesn't like
words to end with v (shiv, rev are usually given as the only ones
that aren't [foreign] names).

On 8/01/2023 7:25 p.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 7:21:25 PM UTC-8, benl...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
>> On 4/01/2023 4:36 a.m., Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 3:04:29 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
>>>> Op 2/01/2023 om 16:26 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
>>>>> On Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 12:16:23 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
>>>>>> Op 26/12/2022 om 18:38 schreef henh...@gmail.com:
>>>
>>>>>>>> Respite is pronounced: [Res-pit]. The last “e” is silent
>>>>>>> (even though it's in the dictionary...) i've never heard the [Respite] pronunciation that rhymes with [Despite]
>>>>>>> What's another word with a similar (final) [Silent E] at the end ?
>>>>>> Looks like the office-suffice mess.
>>>>> Incidentally, the "e" is silent in both those words.
>>>>
>>>> As in both respite and despite?
>>>
>>> Yup. (The final e isn't silent in e.g. anemone.)
>>>
>>> The hen person is using "silent e" to mean what little children
>>> learn to call a "helping vowel," the one that marks the vowel before
>>> it as "long": create, complete, despite, promote, dispute. (Compare
>>> bat bate, pet Pete, bit bite, cot cote, cut cute.) Richard Venezky,
>>> who did the best analysis of English orthography, calls this "e" a
>>> "marker." He identifies several "markers" in English orthography.
>>>
>>> (It doesn't work for the other "long/short" pair as in boot/book.)
>> Actually we little children called it "silent e" if we called it anything.
>>
>> I spent a little time looking for more examples of this particular case
>> which we might call "useless e" -- unmotivated for the speller and
>> misleading for the reader. Here's a longer list (mainly of two-syllable
>> words):
>>
>> respite
>> granite
>> definite, infinite etc.
>> pomegranate
>> candidate
>> private
>> opiate
>> curate
>> pirate
>> senate
>> palate
>> agate
>> minute
>>
>> olive
>> octave
>> massive, captive etc
>>
>> promise, premise, mortise, anise
>> purpose
>>
>> welcome
>> awesome, handsome etc.
>>
>> medicine
>> feminine
>> heroine
>> engine
>> famine
>> ermine
>> urine
>> doctrine
>> fortune
>> missile
>> adjs in -ile docile, virile, agile, etc
>> gunwale
>> capsule
>>
>> office
>> palace
>> precipice
>> college
>> pillage
>> adage
>> advantage
>> message
>>
>> Some of these probably have alternative pronunciations (as with
>> "respite") which would make the -e unproblematic for those who so
>> pronounce them.
>> The majority would be better spelled without the -e. But we can't do
>> that with the -ce and -ge items, in which the -e is doing its other job
>> of indicating a "soft" value for the preceding consonant.
>
>
> thanks for the list.... i couldn't post for almost 2 days and so i sent email to Dr.BenLizro but it was bounced back. ( benlizro@ihug......nz <------ what does BenLizro mean ? )

It's an old email address that no longer exists. Still serves as a kind
of identifier on newsgroups. The "-ro" is me.

>
> in case of
>> olive
>> octave (etc.)
>
> (it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).
>
> oliv
> octav
>
>
> a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov
>
> (or a contraction)
>

That may be a correct observation, but I don't believe there is actually
any such "constraint" on English spelling. (Actually spellings of
"oliv(e)" with and without the -e are attested for as long as the word
has been in the language.) Just why this restriction on final <v> came
about might make an interesting historical study, but it is not a good
reason for preserving the present spelling.

On 2023-01-08, henh...@gmail.com <henhanna@gmail.com> wrote:

>> olive
>> octave (etc.)
>
> (it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).
>
> oliv
> octav
>
> a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov

Or relatively recent coinages like "shiv".

I think you will find more spelling oddities involving v, such as
the o in "love", because the origins of English orthography predate
the typographical distinction between u and v, and various devices
were invented to keep the two readings of the same letter apart and
avoid further confusion between uu/vv and w.

(French also has a few such oddities, e.g. the nonetymological h
in huile < Latin oleum to avoid reading it as "vile".)

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

Op 8/01/2023 om 23:33 schreef Christian Weisgerber:
> On 2023-01-08, henh...@gmail.com <henhanna@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> olive
>>> octave (etc.)
>>
>> (it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).
>>
>> oliv
>> octav
>>
>> a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov
>
> Or relatively recent coinages like "shiv".
>
> I think you will find more spelling oddities involving v, such as
> the o in "love", because the origins of English orthography predate
> the typographical distinction between u and v, and various devices
> were invented to keep the two readings of the same letter apart and
> avoid further confusion between uu/vv and w.
>
> (French also has a few such oddities, e.g. the nonetymological h
> in huile < Latin oleum to avoid reading it as "vile".)

And Spanish: hueso (L. os), huelo (oler, olor), huevo (L. ovum)...

--
guido wugi

On Sunday, January 8, 2023 at 6:30:06 PM UTC-5, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
> On 2023-01-08, henh...@gmail.com <henh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> olive
> >> octave (etc.)
> >
> > (it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).
> >
> > oliv
> > octav
> >
> > a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov
> Or relatively recent coinages like "shiv".
>
> I think you will find more spelling oddities involving v, such as
> the o in "love", because the origins of English orthography predate
> the typographical distinction between u and v, and various devices

That one, and "come" and "mother," and some others, seems to be
because a long string of minims (short vertical strokes) was deemed
to be confusing or even unreadable, so <u> became <o> (the top of
the letter was closed).

> were invented to keep the two readings of the same letter apart and
> avoid further confusion between uu/vv and w.

<w> hadn't been invented yet.

> (French also has a few such oddities, e.g. the nonetymological h
> in huile < Latin oleum to avoid reading it as "vile".)

On 2023-01-09, Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote:

>> the o in "love", because the origins of English orthography predate
>> the typographical distinction between u and v, and various devices
>> were invented to keep the two readings of the same letter apart and
>> avoid further confusion between uu/vv and w.
>
><w> hadn't been invented yet.

Exactly. Instead, <uu> was written. So today's <uv> and <w> were
indistinguishable.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

Mon, 9 Jan 2023 12:45:17 +0100: wugi <wugi@scrlt.com> scribeva:

>Op 8/01/2023 om 23:33 schreef Christian Weisgerber:
>> On 2023-01-08, henh...@gmail.com <henhanna@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> olive
>>>> octave (etc.)
>>>
>>> (it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).
>>>
>>> oliv
>>> octav
>>>
>>> a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov
>>
>> Or relatively recent coinages like "shiv".
>>
>> I think you will find more spelling oddities involving v, such as
>> the o in "love", because the origins of English orthography predate
>> the typographical distinction between u and v, and various devices
>> were invented to keep the two readings of the same letter apart and
>> avoid further confusion between uu/vv and w.
>>
>> (French also has a few such oddities, e.g. the nonetymological h
>> in huile < Latin oleum to avoid reading it as "vile".)
>
>And Spanish: hueso (L. os), huelo (oler, olor), huevo (L. ovum)...

Yes. It's a spelling issue: no Spanish word can begin with ue, ua,
etc. Hence also Chihuahua for is said as Chiwawa.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 16:07:06 +0100: Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com>
scribeva:

>Mon, 9 Jan 2023 12:45:17 +0100: wugi <wugi@scrlt.com> scribeva:
>
>>Op 8/01/2023 om 23:33 schreef Christian Weisgerber:
>>> On 2023-01-08, henh...@gmail.com <henhanna@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> olive
>>>>> octave (etc.)
>>>>
>>>> (it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).
>>>>
>>>> oliv
>>>> octav
>>>>
>>>> a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov
>>>
>>> Or relatively recent coinages like "shiv".
>>>
>>> I think you will find more spelling oddities involving v, such as
>>> the o in "love", because the origins of English orthography predate
>>> the typographical distinction between u and v, and various devices
>>> were invented to keep the two readings of the same letter apart and
>>> avoid further confusion between uu/vv and w.
>>>
>>> (French also has a few such oddities, e.g. the nonetymological h
>>> in huile < Latin oleum to avoid reading it as "vile".)
>>
>>And Spanish: hueso (L. os), huelo (oler, olor), huevo (L. ovum)...
>
>Yes. It's a spelling issue: no Spanish word can begin with ue, ua,
>etc. Hence also Chihuahua for is said as Chiwawa.

Ougadougou: Wagadugu, French has a simular issue.

--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

On 2023-01-09, Ruud Harmsen <rh@rudhar.com> wrote:

>>> (French also has a few such oddities, e.g. the nonetymological h
>>> in huile < Latin oleum to avoid reading it as "vile".)
>>
>>And Spanish: hueso (L. os), huelo (oler, olor), huevo (L. ovum)...
>
> Yes. It's a spelling issue: no Spanish word can begin with ue, ua,
> etc. Hence also Chihuahua for is said as Chiwawa.

But "Chihuahua" is of non-Spanish origin, even if the etymology is
uncertain. In Nahuatl names at least, <h> corresponds to underlying
/h/ ~ glottal stop.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

On Sunday, January 8, 2023 at 11:18:54 AM UTC-8, Ross Clark wrote:
> On 8/01/2023 7:25 p.m., henh...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, January 6, 2023 at 7:21:25 PM UTC-8, benl...@ihug.co.nz wrote:
> >> On 4/01/2023 4:36 a.m., Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Monday, January 2, 2023 at 3:04:29 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
> >>>> Op 2/01/2023 om 16:26 schreef Peter T. Daniels:
> >>>>> On Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 12:16:23 PM UTC-5, wugi wrote:
> >>>>>> Op 26/12/2022 om 18:38 schreef henh...@gmail.com:
> >>>
> >>>>>>>> Respite is pronounced: [Res-pit]. The last “e” is silent
> >>>>>>> (even though it's in the dictionary...) i've never heard the [Respite] pronunciation that rhymes with [Despite]
> >>>>>>> What's another word with a similar (final) [Silent E] at the end ?
> >>>>>> Looks like the office-suffice mess.
> >>>>> Incidentally, the "e" is silent in both those words.
> >>>>
> >>>> As in both respite and despite?
> >>>
> >>> Yup. (The final e isn't silent in e.g. anemone.)
> >>>
> >>> The hen person is using "silent e" to mean what little children
> >>> learn to call a "helping vowel," the one that marks the vowel before
> >>> it as "long": create, complete, despite, promote, dispute. (Compare
> >>> bat bate, pet Pete, bit bite, cot cote, cut cute.) Richard Venezky,
> >>> who did the best analysis of English orthography, calls this "e" a
> >>> "marker." He identifies several "markers" in English orthography.
> >>>
> >>> (It doesn't work for the other "long/short" pair as in boot/book.)
> >> Actually we little children called it "silent e" if we called it anything.
> >>
> >> I spent a little time looking for more examples of this particular case
> >> which we might call "useless e" -- unmotivated for the speller and
> >> misleading for the reader. Here's a longer list (mainly of two-syllable
> >> words):
> >>
> >> respite
> >> granite
> >> definite, infinite etc.
> >> pomegranate
> >> candidate
> >> private
> >> opiate
> >> curate
> >> pirate
> >> senate
> >> palate
> >> agate
> >> minute
> >>
> >> olive
> >> octave
> >> massive, captive etc
> >>
> >> promise, premise, mortise, anise
> >> purpose
> >>
> >> welcome
> >> awesome, handsome etc.
> >>
> >> medicine
> >> feminine
> >> heroine
> >> engine
> >> famine
> >> ermine
> >> urine
> >> doctrine
> >> fortune
> >> missile
> >> adjs in -ile docile, virile, agile, etc
> >> gunwale
> >> capsule
> >>
> >> office
> >> palace
> >> precipice
> >> college
> >> pillage
> >> adage
> >> advantage
> >> message
> >>
> >> Some of these probably have alternative pronunciations (as with
> >> "respite") which would make the -e unproblematic for those who so
> >> pronounce them.
> >> The majority would be better spelled without the -e. But we can't do
> >> that with the -ce and -ge items, in which the -e is doing its other job
> >> of indicating a "soft" value for the preceding consonant.
> >
> >
> > thanks for the list.... i couldn't post for almost 2 days and so i sent email to Dr.BenLizro but it was bounced back. ( benlizro@ihug......nz <------ what does BenLizro mean ? )
> It's an old email address that no longer exists. Still serves as a kind
> of identifier on newsgroups. The "-ro" is me.
> >
> > in case of
> >> olive
> >> octave (etc.)
> >
> > (it seems that) The E is there to make it wf (well-formed).
> >
> > oliv
> > octav
> >
> >
> > a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov
> >
> > (or a contraction)
> >
> That may be a correct observation, but I don't believe there is actually
> any such "constraint" on English spelling. (Actually spellings of
> "oliv(e)" with and without the -e are attested for as long as the word
> has been in the language.) Just why this restriction on final <v> came
> about might make an interesting historical study, but it is not a good
> reason for preserving the present spelling.
>
Luv is an alternate spelling of Love.
Chevrolet named a pickup truck LUV.
'Lurve is in the air' is one expression
with the other alternate spelling.
Lurve has a terminal e even tho dropping
it wouldn't change its pronunciation.

On Wednesday, March 22, 2023 at 1:21:42 AM UTC-4, Dingbat wrote:

> Luv is an alternate spelling of Love.
> Chevrolet named a pickup truck LUV.
> 'Lurve is in the air' is one expression
> with the other alternate spelling.
> Lurve has a terminal e even tho dropping
> it wouldn't change its pronunciation.

A minor orthographic rule of English is that words don't end with v.
The exceptions are usually abbreviations This one would be eye-dialect..

On 2023-01-08, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote:

>> a word ends in V only if it's of foregin-origin, as in Slav, Yugoslav, (or Russian) ... Kiev, Molotov
>>
>> (or a contraction)
>
> That may be a correct observation, but I don't believe there is actually
> any such "constraint" on English spelling. (Actually spellings of
> "oliv(e)" with and without the -e are attested for as long as the word
> has been in the language.) Just why this restriction on final <v> came
> about might make an interesting historical study, but it is not a good
> reason for preserving the present spelling.

Old English didn't have final [v], it was devoiced to [f]. For this
reason, modern English words that end in /v/ are the result of
* loss of a final vowel in Middle English, still reflected in spelling
as -e, in particular in verbs: "have", "leave", etc.;
* borrowing;
* late formations, e.g. "shiv".

Old French also didn't have final /v/, devoicing it to /f/ instead,
e.g. "neuf, neuve". Final /v/ appeared in French only when the
final schwas disappeared, which are still retained in spelling as
-e. So French as the predominant source of borrowings only provided
"-ve".

For orthographic choices involving u and v, it's also worth keeping
in mind that English orthography was standardized at a time when
those letters were not yet distinguished. Although that may not
be relevant here, given the lack of final -u in English.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de