Which word made you slip up the most during grade-school spelling tests? One that confuses a lot of folks is “Wednesday,” the only day of the week with a silent letter. While the spelling seems like it was invented to trick kindergarteners, there’s actually a perfectly good reason “Wednesday” is spelled with a silent “d” in the middle. It comes from the Old English Wōdnesdæg (“Woden’s day”), reflecting the ancient Germanic practice of naming the days of the week after prominent gods — in this case, Woden (also known as Odin).
As it turns out, other strange English spellings also have good reasons for looking so, well, wrong. Whether staying true to ancient roots or hearkening back to surprising origin stories, these words have fascinating stories to tell with their spelling.
Noun: One that takes the lead or initiative; an indicator of trends.
“Bellwether” is often used in a sense of forecasting, as in, “This state is a bellwether for national elections.” Because of this, it’s frequently misspelled as “bellweather,” forming a connection to weather forecasting. Additionally, “wether” itself is a very uncommon (at least in modern usage) English word — it refers to a castrated male sheep. But this definition is precisely where the term “bellwether” originated.
“Bellwether” comes from the Middle English term bellewether or belleweder, referring to said castrated sheep wearing a bell around its neck, encouraging other sheep to follow it. This was the leader of the flock. By the 15th century, the term’s literal sense had diminished and transformed into a metaphorical term for a leader, trendsetter, or indicator.
Noun: A rank of a commissioned officer in the army, air force, or marine corps.
Certain military rankings have complex spellings. “Lieutenant” and “brigadier general” are mouthfuls, but they can be parsed out fairly easily by their spelling. But “colonel” — pronounced “kernel” — strays from the conventional rules of English spelling. In fact, it’s the only common English word with an “l” pronounced as an “r.”
This curious case of spelling results from the influence of two foreign languages: French and Italian. When the Italian word colonello was adopted into French, it became coronel and its pronunciation changed. Later, a spelling variant that reflects its Italian roots, colonel, became popular, but by then, the pronounced “r” was well established, resulting in a French pronunciation with an Italian spelling.
Adjective: Bright and glowing as a result of fluorescence; very bright in color.
“Fluorescent” is an adjective describing something that emits light brightly, such as the fluorescent lights in a shopping mall. It originates from the noun “fluorescence,” which was coined during the 19th century by physicist Sir George G. Stokes, who first observed the glowing phenomenon in the mineral fluorite.
While a more common English spelling pattern would pair the vowels as “ou” instead of “uo,” the mineral, sometimes called “fluorspar,” was named after the Latin fluor, meaning “a flow,” from fluere, meaning “to flow.”
Noun: Any of a genus (Fuchsia) of ornamental shrubs of the evening-primrose family; a vivid reddish purple.
Not all color names are as easy to spell as “red” and “green” — take “chartreuse” and “ochre.” Another sneaky name that breaks from English spelling norms is “fuchsia,” pronounced “FYOO-shuh.” Frequently misspelled as “fuschia” or “fushia,” the correct spelling (“fuchsia”) features a rare “chs” consonant combination.
While English does employ the vowel pair “ch” to sound like “sh” sometimes, as seen in “parachute” and “crochet,” it’s rarely followed by an “s.” This noun’s unique spelling came about because the term was named after Leonhart Fuchs, a German botanist. The oldest version of the term referred to the genus of plants, and it became Fuchsia after the Fuchs surname. The color was named after the plant.
Noun: A person who writes plays.
Famous playwrights such as William Shakespeare are best known for doing just that: writing plays. So why, then, isn’t it spelled “playwrite”? The use of “wright” is no accident — it’s been spelled this way since the term was coined in Middle English. It refers to “a worker skilled in the manufacture, especially of wooden objects,” such as a “shipwright.”
In Middle English, “wright” also meant “builder” or “architect,” not just a woodworker. It comes from the Old English wyrhta or wryhta, meaning “worker” or “maker.” So, a playwright is literally a builder of plays. The term emphasizes the craftsmanship, not just the act of writing.
Verb: To make a transition without interruption from one activity, topic, scene, or part to another.
Often misspelled and mispronounced, “segue” was originally a musical term (“proceed to what follows without pause”) that has become a common word for transitioning to something new. Pronounced “seg-way,” it can confound even native English speakers because the vowel duo “ue” does not traditionally sound like “way.” Further compounding the confusion, the word “way” itself seems to support the definition, indicating a path or transition.
However, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the spelling of “segue”: The original musical term comes from the Italian word seguire, meaning “to follow.” Per Italian pronunciation norms, the verb combination “ue” is often pronounced “way.” Perhaps capitalizing on the spelling-pronunciation mismatch, the American brand Segway produces two-wheeled transportation devices that act as a segue between landmarks during sightseeing tours.
Verb: To cause to be set aside; to force out of use as inferior.
“Supersede” (pronounced “SOO-per-seed”) has superseded many older spelling variations of the word. It first came from the Latin supersedēre, literally meaning “to sit on top of” (sedēre means “to sit”) but also “to be superior to” or “to refrain from.” In Middle English, the word transformed into “superceden,” a synonym for “defer.” While the correct spelling in modern English is “supersede” — preserving the Latin spelling — an alternative, “supercede,” is fairly common and listed as an acceptable variant in the dictionary.
This variation likely comes from the English spelling practice of ending words with “-cede,” as in “precede,” “recede,” and “concede.” “Supersede” is the only common English word that ends with the suffix “-sede,” making writers think twice when sounding it out.
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