Dick and Richard

[indi]

The French and the Norse resided together and mangled each others pronunciation. Richard would be pronounced by the Norse as ichhhard, because they had a dickens of a time trilling their tongues similar to their french counterparts. I suppose in today’s vernacular, this is more embarrassing. But returning to the Middle- Ages, abbreviations were also rampant and Rich, pronounced almost as errichhh evolved to richt and this had many positive, at that time, connotations.

[Acsenray]

Is this what you’re referring to?

[samclem]

@indi

The French and the Norse resided together and mangled each others pronunciation. Richard would be pronounced by the Norse as ichhhard, because they had a dickens of a time trilling their tongues similar to their french counterparts. I suppose in today’s vernacular, this is more embarrassing. But returning to the Middle- Ages, abbreviations were also rampant and Rich, pronounced almost as errichhh evolved to richt and this had many positive, at that time, connotations.

Can you give any readable cites as to your assertions? I’d love to see them.

[Mister_Rik]

I always figured we got Dick out of Richard the same way we got Peggy out of Margaret: British fondness for shortening and rhyming names. Like so:

Margaret -> Margie -> Maggie -> Meggie -> Peggy

Richard -> Rich -> Rick -> Dick

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@indi

The French and the Norse resided together and mangled each others pronunciation. Richard would be pronounced by the Norse as ichhhard, because they had a dickens of a time trilling their tongues similar to their french counterparts. I suppose in today’s vernacular, this is more embarrassing. But returning to the Middle- Ages, abbreviations were also rampant and Rich, pronounced almost as errichhh evolved to richt and this had many positive, at that time, connotations.

More than dubious, the Norman dialect is very close to the French spoken at that time. I mean I can read it and understand large parts of it, I cant do that with Occitan.
By the time the Normans gathered their armies to invade England, they were culturally very close to the French.

[Floater]

@samclem

Can you give any readable cites as to your assertions? I’d love to see them.

So would I. Norse had actually two r sounds, one similar to present English r, used at the end of words and one rolling, like Scottish r-s. The velar r sound produced by the back of the tongue that is used in present French is a speech impediment that became a fashion some time in the 17th century (I think).

[naita]

@indi

The French and the Norse resided together and mangled each others pronunciation. Richard would be pronounced by the Norse as ichhhard, because they had a dickens of a time trilling their tongues similar to their french counterparts. I suppose in today’s vernacular, this is more embarrassing. But returning to the Middle- Ages, abbreviations were also rampant and Rich, pronounced almost as errichhh evolved to richt and this had many positive, at that time, connotations.

Yeah, that’s why the Norse alphabet is called the unic alphabet and their doomsday agnaok.