Let's just rename it "Febuary" and have done with it. I'm referring to the name of the second month, February, which includes the letter R. That's the way it is spelled. The way I spell it in the rest

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Dan Smith

Let's just rename it "Febuary" and have done with it.

I'm referring to the name of the second month, February, which includes the letter R. That's the way it is spelled. The way I spell it in the rest of this post is wrong, and is an error. It's a joke. I'm going to put a strike through all of the places where I spell it wrong, just to make that clear.

But I'm only partly joking. The truth is that we write February but often, even usually, say "<s>Febuary</s>."

The last issue of Consumer Reports made fun of a print ad for a Valentines' Day sale that said, "<s>Febuary</s> Is Love." That sensitized me to the issue, and now I realize that I hear "<s>Febuary</s>" all over. Just yesterday I heard someone on one of my favorite podcasts saying "<s>Febuary</s>,"

I think almost everyone start out by saying "<s>Febuary</s>" and gets corrected. To me, even though I pronounce the R because of having been corrected in youth, all I can say is that <s>Febuary</s> feels right. It feels good in the mouth, it sounds right, it doesn't look that wrong on the page, and, of course, it matches the pattern set by January.

With regard to pronunciation, dictionaries tell the truth:

https://www.lexico.com/definition/february

"Note that February is spelled with an r following the Feb-. Precise speakers insist that this r should be pronounced, but this is not easy, and most people replace the r following Feb- with a y sound: Feb-yoo- rather than Feb-roo-. This is now becoming the accepted standard." They give both pronunciations in IPA and recorded form: February/ˈfɛbrʊəri/ /ˈfɛbjʊəri/

https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=February

Usage Note: The preferred pronunciation among usage writers is (fĕbr-ĕr′ē), but in actual usage the pronunciation (fĕby-ĕr′ē) is far more common and so cannot be considered incorrect. The loss of the first r in this pronunciation can be accounted for by the phonological process known as dissimilation, whereby one of two similar or identical sounds in a word is changed or dropped so that a repetition of that sound is avoided. In the case of February, the loss of the first r was also helped along by the influence of January, which has only one r.

Whatever obscure etymology is being preserved by retaining the "r" hardly seems worth preserving.

So, let's rename it <s>Febuary</s>... and reform the calendar, too, while we're at it. :)

2020年1月21日 12:28

コメント · 5

There is a desperate need for reform, particularly for the orthography of British English but this is a very slippery slope! Other countries have tried this, (Germany being a recent example), and fallen flat on their face, so to speak.

We could do with an Academie Francaise for English, but, given the immense varieties of English and the dynamism of the language, I can’t see this ever having much impact. Even in as small an area as France the AF has had only very modest successes with its edicts and pronouncements.

It is difficult to change a running system.

Perhaps we should instead celebrate these quirks of English. Better to be the outstanding eccentric than one of the bland majority!

2020年1月21日

Haha, I can feel your pain Dan!:D Pronouncing the R sound is a big deal for most of the English speakers, isn't it? How about we pronounce it as Febuworry? Don't worry, you can say it Febuary!:D

2020年1月21日

Well, so much fuss about nothing. I promise everyone of you that the R in February is here to stay. There is a new standard a-coming and this is Global English. And it won't care about what native native English speakers think. It will retain the R just because it is there and it is much easier to pronounce it than to forgo it. Have a nice day and forget about reforms, even tiny ones.

2021年12月14日