# Why Was Today Spelled To-day? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 9, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250 "2009-10-09T23:01:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/21 "2009-10-11T00:31:29Z")
**Dr. Drake** I was excited when you showed up on the Boards, and you’ve done nothing except to make me even happier. Glad to have a professional here to field these questions. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/22 "2009-10-11T01:13:51Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#): > > I don’t understand how a word goes from morgenne to morrow in popular use. If everyone says morgenne, then someone, somewhere, has to be the first person to say morrow instead of morgenne. Once that person says morrow for the first time, then the listener or reader would probably say, “WTF is morrow? Don’t you mean morgenne, you idiot? Why are you trying to change the language? Go move to Scotland if you don’t like it, you shite!” No, obviously the first person who says ‘morrow’ is really cool and everyone else is like, “wow, fonzie, you’re so sexy when you say morrow” and starts doing it too. Maybe to _you_ they’d say to go to Scotland. You probably couldn’t coin ‘fo sho’ either, if you tried. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/23 "2009-10-11T01:35:32Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Well, as an example, “alright”. When the hell did that become okay? You see it in newspapers now. In formal writing my brain still thinks it’s a misspelling, and I assume that’s how it started out. Webster’s dates “alright” back to 1887, so it’s not a recent development. > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Zsofia, I don’t particularly like “alright” either, but it’s perfectly clear what happened in that case. The phrase “all right” began to be perceived as a single expression, so it was compressed into a single word, and the word was spelled “alright”. It probably helped that the expression often spelled “alright” doesn’t mean the same thing as the word “all” plus the word “right”. “Alright” is usually synonymous with “okay”, meaning either that something is acceptable or that the speaker is agreeing. “Alright” is not used to mean “everything is correct”, but “all right” can be used in that way. The “alright” spelling would remove ambiguity in a sentence like “Your answers on this test were all right.” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/24 "2009-10-11T02:03:06Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > **Dr. Drake** I was excited when you showed up on the Boards, and you’ve done nothing except to make me even happier. Glad to have a professional here to field these questions. I blush. Of course, the last time “all right” vs. “alright” came up here, I made a complete ass of myself, so I can’t quite claim perfection yet. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/25 "2009-10-11T03:18:17Z")
In post #7 I wrote: \> Thus the phrase “on morgenne” meant what we mean by “in the morning” in \> modern English. I meant: \> Thus the phrase “to morgenne” meant what we mean by “in the morning” in \> modern English. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/26 "2009-10-11T14:35:46Z")
Bearflag70 writes: \> Obviously I see how one word can change meanings over time and I can see \> how two words can become one word, and how one word might get split into \> two, I suppose, but I’m trying to understand how one word morphs into quite a \> different word with the same definition. I’m baffled as to why you have no problem with semantic change (i.e., change in a word’s meaning) but don’t see how phonological change (i.e., change in the pronunciation of a word) could occur. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on phonological change: > **[Phonological change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_change)** > > In historical linguistics, phonological change is any sound change that alters the distribution of phonemes in a language. In other words, a language develops a new system of oppositions among its phonemes. Old contrasts may disappear, new ones may emerge, or they may simply be rearranged. Sound change may be an impetus for changes in the phonological structures of a language (and likewise, phonological change may sway the process of sound change). One process of phonological change is reph In a ... Phonological change is actually easier to track than semantic change, since phonological changes generally occur over many words while semantic changes often occur in a single word. Note that linguists know a lot about the tendencies of phonological change. Having observed the direction of change in many languages, they know what sounds tend to change into other sounds over time. ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/27 "2009-10-11T20:51:04Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Bearflag70 writes: > > \> Obviously I see how one word can change meanings over time and I can see > \> how two words can become one word, and how one word might get split into > \> two, I suppose, but I’m trying to understand how one word morphs into quite a > \> different word with the same definition. > > I’m baffled as to why you have no problem with semantic change (i.e., change in a word’s meaning) but don’t see how phonological change (i.e., change in the pronunciation of a word) could occur. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on phonological change: > > [Phonological change - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_change) > > Phonological change is actually easier to track than semantic change, since phonological changes generally occur over many words while semantic changes often occur in a single word. Note that linguists know a lot about the tendencies of phonological change. Having observed the direction of change in many languages, they know what sounds tend to change into other sounds over time. I guess because I can cite examples of words that have changed meanings or seem to be in the process of semantic change in recent times: gay; literally; decimate I can’t think of any commonly used words that have changed pronunciation and spelling recently. Maybe “thru” will catch on??? ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/28 "2009-10-11T20:55:50Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#): > > I can’t think of any commonly used words that have changed pronunciation and spelling recently. Maybe “thru” will catch on??? I’m surprised a popular spelling of “tonight” from the 1920s to the 1940s – “to-nite” – never gained traction and had its hyphen removed. ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/29 "2009-10-11T21:21:34Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#): > > I guess because I can cite examples of words that have changed meanings or seem to be in the process of semantic change in recent times: gay; literally; decimate For fuck’s sake the meaning of ‘literally’ has not changed! It is being used as _hyperbole_. Spelling doesn’t change because it’s set in perscriptionist stone. Pronounciation changes all the time, but only in the circles of slang. Official pronounciation has likewise been set in stone since the early days of tv/radio. But back in the illiterate non-tv-watching past, pronounciation could change much more reasily. If mouse-over dictionaries ever become popular, meaning will also freeze. For now, though, it’s still easy to wing. ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/30 "2009-10-11T21:46:05Z")
> [@Alex\_Dubinsky](#): > > For fuck’s sake the meaning of ‘literally’ has not changed! It is being used as _hyperbole_. Christ, we’re just discussing language here. Everyone has some hot buttons I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/31 "2009-10-11T22:01:13Z")
Pronunciation is indeed changing all the time. It happens rather slowly certainly. You don’t notice it as much for several reasons. One is that you are only (of course) listening to current accents in your conversations. To get an idea of how much it’s changed, listen to the accents in movies of the early 1930’s. The differences aren’t just because they spoke in a more formal way. There really are differences in their accents from current accents. Another reason is that you read older books and assume that if the authors read them aloud they would use your accent. But that’s not at all true. Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, would be considerably harder to understand if spoken in the accent in which he spoke, which doesn’t sound like any current accent. Furthermore, you are all the time hearing different accents whenever you listen to someone speaking who is from a different region. The region in which the accents are spoken are always slowly changing, as features from one accent slowly spreads to other regions. Indeed, your own accent has probably changed over your lifetime. Sound recording has now existed long enough that we can track the slow changes in the accents of some people. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/32 "2009-10-12T04:48:16Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#): > > I guess because I can cite examples of words that have changed meanings or seem to be in the process of semantic change in recent times: gay; literally; decimate _Decimate_ to mean “destroy every tenth man” has only been used in its literal Latin sense for historical purposes. This original meaning is reserved for the past–it has never had common use in contemporary English language contexts. The extended emphatic sense is shown from 1663, hardly recent, and it is the only thriving definition of the word for contemporary meanings. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/33 "2009-10-12T09:55:41Z")
Oh, I forgot in my last post that I was going to give an example of a phonological change that’s currently going on in some regions of the U.S.: > **[Inland Northern American English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_cities_vowel_shift)** > > Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of Upstate New York westward along the Erie Canal and through much of the U.S. Great Lakes region. The most distinctive Inland Northern accents are spoken in Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. The dialect can be he The ea... This started in upstate New York and has gradually expanded over the past century and a half to a larger portion of the U.S. This is typical of phonological changes, I think, in that they start in a limited area and slowly spread. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/34 "2009-10-12T13:51:21Z")
The trouble is, it’s difficult to hear both sides of a sound shift. One of them will sound like an accent to you, and thus “wrong” and something you can easily discount. The other will be “normal.” Only in hindsight can you say, “yep, shoulda seen that comin’.” [-ng \> -n]. Personally, I say “melk” and “vanella,” but since I learned to spell in an institutional setting, those look wrong, while short-i “milk” and “vanilla” sound wrong, even though other people and their dictionaries will insist that they’re correct. You might say, “Would like some milk?” and I’d respond, “I’d love some melk,” but neither of us could say “Would you like whole melk or skim milk?” With semantic shift, on the other hand, you might easily hold multiple meanings of a word in your head. “The gay couple was having a gay time at the ice-cream social, but their kids thought it was gay.” No one would ever say that sentence, because the second “gay” is obsolete (and the third is offensive), but it’s easy for an English speaker to see and understand all three meanings at once. Spelling changes very slowly, so most of our words reflect centuries-old pronunciations (almost no one says “water” with both [t] and [r]\*). There are a few changes coming in. “Thru” instead of “through” gives me the screaming horrors, but it’s just the completion of a centuries-long process of losing that final guttural. We no longer say -gh; why write the obsolete letters, just for historical funsies? [Yes!] - Most British people drop the [r] and rhotacise the vowel. Most Americans change intervocalic -t- to an alveolar flap (something like a D and something like an R). ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250/35 "2009-10-13T23:05:27Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > It probably helped that the expression often spelled “alright” doesn’t mean the same thing as the word “all” plus the word “right”. “Alright” is usually synonymous with “okay”, meaning either that something is acceptable or that the speaker is agreeing. “Alright” is not used to mean “everything is correct”, but “all right” can be used in that way. It’s funny and quite appropriate to this thread that you contrast “All right” meaning “everything is correct”, with “alright” meaning “okay”, since the origin of the word “okay” is from a shortened misspelling of the phrase “All correct” [Wikipedia link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okay#Oll_korrect). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-today-spelled-to-day/513250.md?page=1)