Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 May 26

= May 26 =

Single/double consonants in English
Why is the correct spelling “sheriff” rather than “sherrif” or “sherriff?” Why is a law enforcement officer a “marshal” instead of a “marshall?” Is there now or has there ever been a difference in pronunciation? Edison (talk) 01:09, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * You're expecting consistency from English? Really now.
 * More seriously, you may find Sheriff and Marshal helpful. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:26, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Funnily enough, here in Australia we have a company that sells car batteries, called Marshall Batteries - https://www.marshallbatteries.com.au/ - double "l". A quick look at that website will show you that they use a cartoonish image of a wild west marshal as their logo, and a slogan of "Holler for a Marshall". (Holler is a word rarely used in Australia.) It's clearly referencing the American word, but with what they saw as a more logical(?) spelling. HiLo48 (talk) 01:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Marshall (thusly spelt) may simply have been the name of the company's founder, as in this case. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:29, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Might have been, but that doesn't explain the marketing approach with the spelling "error". HiLo48 (talk) 02:33, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Correct spelling and corporate marketing are not always happy bedfellows - look at the respectable purveyor of children's shoes to our Royal Family: Start-rite. Alansplodge (talk) 07:27, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * America has these too: ShopRite, Rite-Aid, Chick Fil-A (a restaurant), Ruff Ryders Entertainment (Rough Riders) and the Queensboro Bridge (Queen's Borough). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:42, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I could understand this practice if, say, “rr” was pronounced with a rolled “r.” But  double or single consonants seem to have the same pronunciation in English, at least in the US. Does any active editor know why English consonants are single or double when the pronunciations would seem to be the same? Edison (talk) 03:35, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Because it's English. Languages like Spanish and German have more consistency between pronunciation and orthography. English just doesn't roll that way. This is in part because English is a mixup of so many influences; see here for a brief discussion. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:57, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Double consonants in English tell the speaker to use the short vowel rather than the long vowel for the preceding vowel. Consider the minimal pairs like "razed" and "razzed" or "biter" and "bitter". -- Jayron 32 10:58, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Very good principle for letter combinations where that practice is followed. But here in sheriff it would imply the “e” before the r getting the long sound, like “shay-riff.” It would imply “mar-shale.” Edison (talk) 15:50, 26 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The word shīr used to have a long vowel ([iː], like ee), which became a diphtong in modern English shire.
 * Also, while English spelling is an unholy mess, German is far from being perfect, either. Mostly for historical reasons, we have silent s and  s,   pronounced as though it was written , and that mess of a trigraph that is  . Rgds  ✦  hugarheimur 16:43, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Can't help remembering that Bob Dylan early in his career performed under the name Elston Gunnn, with three n's in Gunnn. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 23:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

I often tell non-English speakers that in English, there are rules of grammar. . . then there are exceptions to the rules. . . THEN there are exceptions to the exceptions, not to mention aspects that make no logical sense at all! So glad English is my first language! I would hate to have to learn it! 68.235.185.231 (talk) 18:58, 29 May 2018 (UTC)68.235.185.231 (talk) 18:59, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Blakiston Rectory haunting
Hi, I don't believe in ghosts but I'm quite interested in folklore and was looking at the Blakiston, South Australia page and it mentions an alleged haunting of the rectory. 'A number of past tenants of the Rectory have reported sighting a ghostly figure in the Rector's study. The alleged apparition is of an old man, sitting and quietly reading.' This has no source and a Google search didn't come up with anything. Is there any other info out there? Ringaringa13 (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Hmm. The claim has no citation and was added by a user who hasn't contributed in several years. I haven't found anything at all to support the claim, including here. If nothing does turn up, the lines should probably be removed. Matt Deres (talk) 02:31, 27 May 2018 (UTC)