{"id":42112,"date":"2018-05-18T09:10:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T08:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=42112"},"modified":"2018-05-25T12:25:51","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T11:25:51","slug":"jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-oe-ae-oe-ae-oh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2018\/05\/18\/jeffrey-aronson-when-i-use-a-word-oe-ae-oe-ae-oh\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Oe ae oe ae oh!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jeffrey_aronson\"<\/a>I recently<\/a> pointed out that some people, believing that words ending in
\n\u2013penia had been Americanized, spelt them with \u2013paenia or \u2013poenia, ignoring (or ignorant of) the fact that the suffix is from the Greek word \u03c0\u03b5\u03bd\u03af\u03b1, meaning poverty.<\/p>\n

This phenomenon is known as hypercorrection, which is the false use of a spelling, pronunciation, or construction, modelled on an apparently analogous prestigeful form (a definition that I have modelled on the definition of \u201chypercorrect\u201d in the Oxford English Dictionary<\/i>). For example, when a well known cricket commentator recently announced his forthcoming presence on Classic FM as \u201cHenry Blofeld, better known to you and I as Blowers\u201d, he was hypercorrecting from \u201cbetter known to you and me\u201d (compare \u201cbetter known to me\u201d). Some justify this use by suggesting that \u201cyou and I\u201d is a composite pronoun, which takes the same form in both the subjective (nominative) and objective (accusative) cases; that \u201cyou and I\u201d in the objective case is sanctioned by widespread use (a strong argument); and that great authors (e.g. Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice<\/i><\/a>) have hypercorrected like this (not such a strong argument). Others regard all this as protesting too much. I make no comment.<\/p>\n

\"\"
St Isidore of Seville, as portrayed by the Spanish artist Bartolom\u00e9 Esteban Murillo; the late Pope John Paul II nominated Isidore as the patron saint of the internet<\/a>, because in the Etymologiae<\/em>, also known as the Origins, he tried to record everything that was known at the time<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here\u2019s an example of a hypercorrection that stems from a false etymology. The word \u201cfetus\u201d derives from the Latin word feto, I breed. The hypercorrect \u201cfoetus\u201d has been around since at least the beginning of the seventh century. St Isidore, Archbishop of Seville, in a section entitled \u201cDe homine et partibus eius\u201d in his Originum sive etymologiarum libri<\/i> (Books of Origins <\/i>or Etymologies<\/i>), commonly known as the Etymologiae<\/i> (published in about 620 AD), incorrectly wrote that it was derived from foveo, I keep warm: \u201cFoetus autem nominatus, quod adhuc in utero foveatur\u201d (XI, 1, 144). Isidore\u2019s text was highly derivative, and he cited many Latin authors, such as Cicero, Ennius, Juvenal, Lucan, Martial, Ovid, Terence, the etymologist Varro, and particularly Virgil, as well as the Bible. However, he gave no source for his opinion on f[o]etus.<\/p>\n

The Oxford English Dictionary<\/i> says that both \u201cfetus\u201d and \u201cfoetus\u201d appear in Latin manuscripts (dates unspecified), and the Loeb edition of Varro\u2019s De Lingua Latina<\/i> cites \u201cfaetus\u201d from the version known as the Codex Laurentianus<\/i>. However, all this may be medi[a]eval\u2014the Oxford Latin Dictionary<\/i> gives no instances of \u201cfoetus\u201d or \u201cfaetus\u201d.<\/p>\n

The earliest English language citation in the OED<\/i> (from 1398) uses the spelling \u201cfetus\u201d. It is not until 1610 that \u201cfoetus\u201d is first recorded, in a translation of one of Hippocrates\u2019 aphorisms: \u201cIf the monthly purgations doe keepe their course to a woman with child, it is impossible that the f\u0153tus should be in health\u201d. An earlier instance, \u201cthe Foetus of the Latines, and Embryon of the Greekes\u201d (T B la Primaud, 1594), included in the print version of the 2nd edition (1989), has now been suppressed by the OED<\/i>, since it reports the use of the word in Latin, not English.<\/p>\n

The IndoEuropean root DH\u0112 meant to suck, hence to nourish, hence to be fruitful or happy. The Greek derivative \u03b8\u03ae\u03bb\u03b7 meant a nipple, from which we get endothelium, epithelium, mesothelium, perithelium, and urothelium. By consonantal shift we get words such as female (one who suckles), feminine, effeminate, fecund, and felicity. Fetus in Latin meant breeding or birth. Effete literally\u00a0means exhausted by birthing, and superfetation in animals is a second conception occurring after the first but before delivery; no hint of an added o<\/i> in those. Fellare in Latin meant to suck the nipple, fellator one who did so; fellatio is a different type of sucking.<\/p>\n

Below I have charted the changes with time in the uses of \u201cfetus\/fetal\u201d versus \u201cfoetus\/foetal\u201d as textwords in publications indexed in PubMed (Figure 1); \u201cfetus\u201d wins.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Figure 1.<\/b> The frequencies of \u201cfetus\/fetal\u201d as textwords in bioscience papers, as a per cent of the total numbers of instances of \u201cfetus\/fetal + foetus\/foetal\u201d (1993\u20132017; source PubMed):<\/p>\n