Why does the word colonel (as in military rank) have such a strange spelling compared to how it's pronounced (or vice versa, although I don't know how you would pronounce that)?
Asked
Active
Viewed 5.2k times
34
-
15And don't get me started on the British and Canadian pronunciation of lieutenant ;-) – ghoppe Jan 24 '11 at 21:51
-
2@ghoppe, but only in the army and the air force; not the navy. – Brian Hooper Jan 24 '11 at 22:55
-
Sub-lieutenant Hooper, you are on a charge! – Tim Lymington May 08 '11 at 17:46
-
1is it only me or do you hear "kernel" when this word is spoken in the US? – bla Jan 30 '14 at 04:24
-
I'm not coluite clear what your coluestion is. Do you find the spelling coluirky somehow? – Acccumulation Jul 18 '20 at 21:29
-
1@BrianHooper, how would a person of that naval rank be addressed by a colleague in their army? – WhiskerBiscuit Apr 30 '21 at 23:56
-
@WhiskerBiscuit I really couldn't say. The only forces people I spoke to regularly where RAF. I suspect Tim Lymington isn't altogether in agreement with my comment in any case. – Brian Hooper May 01 '21 at 08:17
2 Answers
25
It comes from Italian military manuals, and the English spelling preserves the Italian form, colonnello. Two pronunciations coexisted; the r prevailed in English. Spanish took both the spelling and pronunciation: coronel.
Jay
- 3,572
-
2Collenella meaning 'column', i.e. column of troops. So a colonel is a commander of a column. – Jan 24 '11 at 22:06
-
7It'd be better to say that though it was originally spelt coronel and retains that pronunciation, the spelling was artificially changed during 16th-century spelling reform. – Jon Purdy Jan 24 '11 at 22:52
-
3The Italian word for colonel is colonnello, which comes from the Italian word colonna (column), which comes from the Latin columna. (My first language is Italian, so you can trust me on that ;-).) – apaderno Jan 26 '11 at 14:16
-
-
3
As reported from the NOAD:
ORIGIN middle 16th Century: from obsolete French coronel (earlier form of colonel), from Italian colonnello (column of soldiers) from colonna (column) from Latin columna. The form coronel, source of the modern pronunciation, was usual until the middle 17th Century.
The word is pronounced in a strange way because it kept the old pronunciation, while the word changed spelling.
apaderno
- 59,185