[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[Mike Meredith]

On Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:48:38 -0500, Micah R Ledbetter wrote:
> I've heard somewhere that spelling changes were made because of an 
> assumed correlation with Latin when in fact the word evolved
> elsewhere. The only one I can remember is "island" - according to
> what I read, it was never pronounced with an "s" in English, but the
> "s" was added because at the time people believed that the word must
> have come from Latin, where the word looks similar, and there was an
> "s". Confirm/deny?

Turns out that island comes from the Old English igland/iland/yland.
The 's' is inherited from isle (Old French, derived from the latin
insular) because of a bit of 15thC confusion. Whether it was really a
genuine attempt at latinization of the word 'island' or just a popular
printer deciding that it should be spelt like 'isle' I don't know. I'd
say something like the later is more likely though.

> Is it bad that I like to watch some movies / TV shows *because* I
> think the accents are interesting? (Not restricted to British)

No. It's weird though :)

-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
 Power corrupts; Powerpoint corrupts absolutely.
 -- Vint Cerf