Meet ghost words—when language mistakes or misunderstandings become valid. Your typo could be accepted.
If the English language wasn’t confusing enough, what with homonyms (words that share a spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings) or homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings) to name a few, there’s also ghost words. Not something reserved for Halloween, ghost words are words that only came into being because of a mistake somewhere along the way.
A history of errors
Shakespeare may have had his Comedy of Errors, but the Bard’s native tongue is really a language of errors. According to Merriam-Webster.com, the phrase ghost word is defined as “a word form never in established usage.” The first known usage of the term dates to 1886 and a lexicographer named Walter Skeat.
Why is English such a confusing and challenging language? A lot of it has to do with how the language evolved. To start, English was crafted using the Latin alphabet, but unfortunately our Ancient Roman brethren did not use a similar set of sounds. So that’s the first disconnect. The next batch of issues comes from the many invasions English speakers experienced when the language was forming. For instance, English received its Roman alphabet when that group invaded the British Isles in 1 AD. Six centuries later, the Angles and Saxons entered the picture and brought their language. The melting pot of languages continued to be added to with Viking excursions to Britain in the 9th century and the conquering by the Norman French in the 10th century. Last but not least, as England began to expand its empire across the globe, even more words filtered into the language.
Finally, throw in a healthy dose of pronunciation laziness over the centuries—dropping sounds to save effort or simplifying sound combinations—and you have a language that can befuddle even native speakers regularly.
Examples of ghost words
So, what exactly is a ghost word? Gravy is a great example. Believe it or not, this beloved addition to your mashed potatoes comes from a translation error in the 14th century. A recipe from the Old French contained the word “grane,” which meant “anything used in cooking.” English translations dating from the 14th century and later showed the “n” as a “v” or a “u,” creating what we know as gravy. Those in the know who have studied the matter think it is simply the result of a translation/transcription error.
We have confusion and misunderstanding to thank for our ghost word tweed as well. This fabric, a type of wool, was known as “twill” by the Scots, but their pronunciation sounded like “tweel.” Adding to the confusion, there is a river in Scotland called the Tweed. The end result is that by the mid-1800s, tweed was the commonly used term for the cloth in London.
Since we started with Shakespeare, we’ll end today’s lesson in lexicography with the Swan of Avon. His play Cymbeline gave us the name Imogene, which is believed to be a misspelling of the name Innogen, a Celtic name thought to be derived from a Gaelic word for girl or maiden—inghean.
