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I was wondering about this for a while now. Could anyone explain this phenomenon or is it just "English quirks"?

Examples:

  • invoke/invocation
  • provoke/provocation
  • revoke/revocation
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4 Answers4

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The letters we think of as vowels 'a, e, i, o, u' are commonly associated with (at least) two different actual vowel sounds. These are so deeply embedded into the minds of English speakers that most speakers won't stop to think that in contemporary English there is no phonetic relationship between these vowels at all.

In British English RP we can observe the following relationships between these letters and some of the sounds they commonly represent:

  • A - /æ/, /eɪ/
  • E - /e/, /i:/
  • I - /ɪ/, /aɪ/
  • O - /ɒ/, /əʊ/
  • U - /ʌ/, /u:/

Notice that the sounds on the left are relatively short, and the ones on the right are longer. These symbols from British RP use a colon to represent length, or they use two symbols. You might also notice that the right hand sounds are actually the names of the letters involved. So the letter 'A' is actually pronounced /eɪ/. We can hear these different vowels being represented by these letters in the following pairs of words:

  • fat, fate
  • gen, gene
  • pin, pine
  • rot, rote
  • mut, mute

You will notice that one way that we represent the longer vowel sounds associated with these letters in the orthography is to put an 'e' after a single consonant at the end of a word.

This is what we see in the word invoke. The purpose of the E following the K in this word is to show that the O represents /əʊ/ and not /ɒ/.

Now in the word invoke we see this convention interacting with a different one. The letter C in English more often than not represents a /k/ when followed by the written vowels A, O and U as in the words cat, cot and cut. However, when followed by an E, I or Y it often represents an /s/ sound as in the words cent, cistern or cynic. Of course, we don't see this happening with the letter K, which always represents the hard sound /k/. We can observe this contrast, therefore, in pairs of words such as mace and make or lice and like.

In the word invoke we require the E to show that the O is representing a long /əʊ/ and not the short /ɒ/. If we spelled the word as either invoc or invok then a reader unfamiliar with the word would assume it rhymed with the word wok. Now if we just put an E after invoc so it was spelled invoce then an uninitiated reader would assume that the word rhymed with dose, because of the convention for using C to represent an /s/ sound when followed by E. In order to maintain the hard /k/ required, we need to use the letter K here.

Notice that in the word invocation, the C is followed by an A and so can therefore be used to represent the /k/ sound. The pattern that we see above is, of course, also seen in the other pairs of words listed in the question.

Araucaria - Him
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    +1. On the principle that pairs of actual common words might be preferable, I suggest cute/cut for u--but what for e? The closest I can come is pet/Pete. Why are word pairs showing this pattern so few for the vowel e, I wonder? – Brian Donovan Nov 04 '15 at 14:50
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    @BrianDonovan I was wondering that too. I think it might be because we have a preference for using double E in comparable situations, perhaps? – Araucaria - Him Nov 04 '15 at 14:51
  • @BrianDonovan I was going to use cut but then I realised I'd already used it in cat, cot, cut ... Any more suggestions? I'll have a ponder myself. – Araucaria - Him Nov 04 '15 at 14:53
  • This was the explanation I was thinking of, but with this explanation I think the question becomes: why not provokation? – Tevis Nov 04 '15 at 15:18
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    @Tevis Because we can represent the /k/ there with a C because it is followed by A, not E. This also respects the derivation of the word (from the Latin vocare) :) – Araucaria - Him Nov 04 '15 at 15:27
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    So then I suppose the answer to the original question would be English quirks? Why respect the origin of the root in one mode, but then disrespect it in the next and actively use them both :) – Tevis Nov 04 '15 at 15:43
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    I suspect this is similar to the reason that American English uses "center" rather than "centre", but doesn't replace "massacre" with "massacer" – Ben Aaronson Nov 04 '15 at 15:53
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    Nice presentation of the RP vowel system. Ain't English spelling fun? – John Lawler Nov 04 '15 at 16:28
  • In summary, the answer to the question is that the question should be "Why are the verb forms of –ocation nouns spelled with -oke endings?" – 200_success Nov 04 '15 at 17:46
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    @200_success, I read it the other way around as "why are the verb forms of nouns that end in "-oke" not spelled with "-okation". Why does the K needlessly change to a C when the pronunciation doesn't change. This answer doesn't seem to address that. – JPhi1618 Nov 04 '15 at 19:03
  • I agree with @JPhi1618. I am guessing that the origin of the words are spelled with a c and not a k? – David K Nov 04 '15 at 20:34
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    @JPhi1618: as mentioned by David K, the origin is probably one element. Another reason I can think of: in general, before the letter "a," the sound /k/ is more commonly spelled with the letter "c" than with the letter "k." Look at the relative lengths of these lists: words with "ka" vs. Words with "ca" – herisson Nov 04 '15 at 23:22
  • @BrianDonovan, Araucaria: You can’t get much more common than her/here.  Other possibilities include met/mete and red/rede; while “mete” and “rede” aren’t very common, I question whether “gen” is even an actual word.  As for *u*, I found cub/cube, cur/cure, dud/dude, dun/dune, hug/huge, lug/luge, rub/rube, run/rune, tub/tube, and tun/tune.  BTW, Microsoft Word’s spell checker recognizes “gen” as a (correctly spelled) word, but not “rede” or “tun”. – Scott - Слава Україні Nov 30 '15 at 20:23
  • @Scott Are you a west-pondian? If so, us east-pondians use gen to mean special, real knowledge - or as a verb to mean to get clued up on :) – Araucaria - Him Nov 30 '15 at 22:33
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    @Araucaria: Yes, I Am.  :-)  ⁠ – Scott - Слава Україні Nov 30 '15 at 22:39
  • While this gives a nice explanation of systematic pronunciation in English, unless there's any evidence that the spelling was changed or codified in order to match the system I don't think it can be considered the answer to why the words are spelt this way. Rather, the etymological analysis in https://english.stackexchange.com/a/37710/82970 gives the why, or "how did this come about". That's probably not the accepted answer because it would have come in when https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/37706/invoke-and-invocation was merged with this question. That's also why it's older. – Yogh Oct 17 '19 at 19:24
  • @Yogh Not really. It would be, if it was spelled "invoque", but it isn't. – Araucaria - Him Oct 17 '19 at 21:33
  • @ArunabhBhattacharya Don't know where you got that from: promote, relegate, compensate, humane, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. – Araucaria - Him Jan 01 '22 at 01:35
  • "In the word invoke we require the E to show that the O is representing a long /əʊ/ and not the short /ɒ/. If we spelled the word as either invoc or invok then a reader unfamiliar with the word would assume it rhymed with the word wok." This would not be a logical solution. It could be written as "invocate". The original Latin word is "invocare", whose conjugation class is "-are". Most words of Latin origin with the "-are" conjugation class do not add a silent "e" for long vowel sounds. For example, "consume" comes from "consumere", which is an "-ere" verb and not an "-are" verb. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Jan 01 '22 at 06:54
  • And in fact, I looked at https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/78509/why-is-service-pronounced-the-way-it-is. Here, even though "service" ends in the short "i" sound, it keeps the "e" at the end to show that the "c" is pronounced as "s" and not as "k". – Arunabh Bhattacharya Jan 02 '22 at 14:21
  • @ArunabhBhattacharya How could a word /ɪn'vəʊk/ be written "invocate"? (Shrugs) – Araucaria - Him Jan 02 '22 at 16:43
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. The "-ate" suffix is common in words of Latin origin. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Jan 02 '22 at 16:48
  • @ArunabhBhattacharya Words are made up of sounds, and the spellings reflect (in English, only approximately and irregularly) the sounds of the words. The word doesn't have an /eɪt/ suffix and it therefore does not have an -ate suffix in the orthography. – Araucaria - Him Jan 02 '22 at 16:54
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore., so the sound could be added. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Jan 02 '22 at 16:56
  • @ArunabhBhattacharya No, languages are what they are, not what people think they should be! – Araucaria - Him Jan 02 '22 at 16:56
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. Specific words in languages could be replaced over time, still resembling the original word closely. This has happened to a lot of words. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Jan 02 '22 at 17:01
  • @ArunabhBhattacharya But that would involve the well-ridiculed idea that language should be what some self-appointed individuals think it should be. Anyhow, that has little to do with the question, which is: why is the actual real-world word invoke spelled the way it is! – Araucaria - Him Jan 02 '22 at 23:51
  • And English never allows "c" or "j" at the end of a word. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Jan 07 '22 at 18:53
  • @ArunabhBhattacharya What you mean it doesn't allow words like music, athletic, tic, mic, esoteric, runic, metabolic, drastic or idiotic? (etc, etc, etc). [I don't think I get your point.] – Araucaria - Him Jan 08 '22 at 16:39
  • I would again like to interpret the statement "In the word invoke we require the E to show that the O is representing a long /əʊ/ and not the short /ɒ/. If we spelled the word as either invoc or invok then a reader unfamiliar with the word would assume it rhymed with the word wok." English has many exceptions to this silent "e". For example, "both" has the long /əʊ/, but it is still spelled "both" and not "bothe". So, if "invoke" was spelled "invoc" or "invok" , then it would address the same exception as "both". – Arunabh Bhattacharya Feb 15 '22 at 21:45
  • https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/529971/why-some-words-ending-in-ke-become-cable-and-or-cative-while-others-become: In the word "notice" we require the C for consistency. If we spelled the word as either "notis" or "notise", then it would be inconsistent with Latin. Now if we just change the S in "notis" to C, so it was spelled "notic", then an uninitiated reader would assume that the word rhymed with "batik", because of the convention for using C to represent a /k/ sound at the end of a word. In order to maintain the soft /s/ required, we need to use the silent E after it. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Jun 09 '22 at 17:35
  • @ArunabhBhattacharya Thanks for that, but what’s your point? – Araucaria - Him Jun 09 '22 at 17:47
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. I am pointing out that many words like "notice" use that silent E only to show that it is the soft /s/ sound and not the hard /k/ sound. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Jun 09 '22 at 18:38
  • @ArunabhBhattacharya I didn’t bother to go into the interaction with stress. I’ll let you work that out yourself. Notice that that post plagiarises mine directly (one of many that that poster plagiarised). You’ve basically taken part of my post that someone else copied and posted it back to me as a comment. I would *really* appreciate it if you would stop commenting under my post. It usually ends up with your having to delete your comments and it takes up a lot of my time. Cheers. – Araucaria - Him Jun 09 '22 at 19:21
  • "The letter C in English more often than not represents a /k/ when followed by the written vowels A, O and U as in the words cat, cot and cut. However, when followed by an E, I or Y it often represents a /s/ sound as in the words cent, cistern or cynic. Of course, we don't see this happening with the letter K, which always represents the hard sound /k/." It turns out that K when followed by an E, I or Y it sometimes represents a /tʃ/ sound as in the word kit. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Dec 25 '22 at 04:25
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    @ArunabhBhattacharya I thought we had an agreement that you would desist from making daft comment underneath my posts? – Araucaria - Him Dec 26 '22 at 01:24
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. We are not making daft comments at all. But I will anyway not comment unless I have a question. – Arunabh Bhattacharya Dec 26 '22 at 06:01
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Actually, invocation comes from the Latin invocatio(n), from the verb invocare, via Old French; invoke comes from French invoquer, from the Latin invocare.
in the first case the word derives from a word containing ca, which is maintained in the English word; in the latter case, the word derives from a French work containing que, which has been changed in ke.

There are some words that derives from a word in another language that contains que. In some cases, the que part is changed in ke; in other cases, the que part is kept in English too. For example, conquest derives from the Old French conquest(e), which comes from the Latin conquirere; conquer derives from Old French conquerre, which comes from the Latin conquirere.

apaderno
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    +1 I was going to post that one "que -> ke", I think it's most likely that the words developed like that. – Alenanno Aug 12 '11 at 13:24
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    Yes. The OED gives the forms "invoque", "invoak" and "invoke" as historical spellings for "invoke" in English - it has apparently never been "invoce". Really it's parallel with pairs like "canticle/chant", where one came direct from Latin and the other through French; but in most cases this affected the pronuncation, but here only the spelling. – Colin Fine Aug 12 '11 at 13:27
  • There's invoice, literally a bill that invokes payment, where voke relates to vox, "voice". Wiktionary doesn't find it reasonable to source the claim that invoice came from Middle French envois [then why not envoys?!], plural of envoi [why from the plural?] via envoyer, "to send", that were from Late Latin inviare, via via, "way" (abl. "by way of"), that has two proposed etymologies. I guess, via, invoice and maybe vox might be convoluted wanderworts, given the themes (travel, post), infused with a pinch of folk believe. – vectory Apr 29 '19 at 18:00
  • @kiamlamuno The two examples you give of que being kept in English have Latin origins with qui compared to ca in invocare for invoquer. Do you think that's systematic? L qui -> OF que -> E que vs. L ca -> OF que -> E ke – Yogh Oct 17 '19 at 19:16
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Actually, taking a look at their etymologies, you'd be expecting "invoke" to be spelt "invoce"!

Their roots are:

invoke: late 15c., from M.Fr. envoquer (12c.), from L. invocare "call upon, implore," from in- "upon" (see in- (2)) + vocare "to call,"

Invocation: late 14c., "petition (to God or a god) for aid or comfort; invocation, prayer;" also "a summoning of evil spirits," from O.Fr. invocation (12c.), from L. invocationem, noun of action from pp. stem of invocare

So, they've got the exact same root, but why is "invoke" spelt "invoke", or "invocation" spelt "invocation"?

My conjecture is that "invoce" was deemed easily confused in pronunciation (Invose?) as it is followed by an "e", and so, to reaffirm its "k" sound, they wrote it as "invoke" instead of "invoce". "Invocation" is followed by an "a", so change of spelling was not necessary.

And by the way, yes, that's the correct word.

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Thursagen
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    Why should it be "invoce"? You don't give explanations for this. I find it most likely to be something like "invo[que]r" -> "invo[ke]". – Alenanno Aug 12 '11 at 13:28
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    It's pretty directly explained in the first line of the quoted passage; "invoke" is derived from "invocare". In latin, "c" is a hard k sound, so when it mutated to English, the letter eventually changed because "c" is ambiguous in that syllable (voce).

    Likewise, the "c" is non-ambiguous (or at least less ambigious) in the syllable "-cation", so the letter never morphed.

     – matthias Aug 12 '11 at 16:03
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For "invocation," your cognate should be "vocal." The spelling of "invoke" was likely a convention adopted in spite of the etymology.

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