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  • Pearls Before Swine: Pronouncing the L in Could

    From Lynn McGuire@21:1/5 to All on Thu Jan 13 14:11:48 2022
    XPost: rec.arts.sf.written

    Pearls Before Swine: Pronouncing the L in Could
    https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/01/13

    Yup, nobody pronounces the L in Could.

    Lynn

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  • From John W Kennedy@21:1/5 to Lynn McGuire on Thu Jan 13 16:16:17 2022
    XPost: rec.arts.sf.written

    On 1/13/22 3:11 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
    Pearls Before Swine: Pronouncing the L in Could
       https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/01/13

    Yup, nobody pronounces the L in Could.

    Lynn

    They did for a while, starting in the 1500s. It appears to have been a hypercorrection—thinking that because “would” and “should” had Ls, “could” should an L, too. But that was a mistake, because “would” and “should” are the past forms of “will” and “shall”, which do have Ls (although they are not pronounced in “woujld” and “should” anymore). But
    “could” is the past form of “can”, and there had never been an L in it.

    --
    John W. Kennedy
    Algernon Burbage, Lord Roderick, Father Martin, Bishop Baldwin,
    King Pellinore, Captain Bailey, Merlin -- A Kingdom for a Stage!

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  • From Christian Weisgerber@21:1/5 to Lynn McGuire on Thu Jan 13 21:31:15 2022
    XPost: rec.arts.sf.written

    On 2022-01-13, Lynn McGuire <[email protected]> wrote:

    Pearls Before Swine: Pronouncing the L in Could
    https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/01/13

    Yup, nobody pronounces the L in Could.

    And it's not as if the L fell silent at some point. It never was
    there in the first place (cf. Old English cuþe, German konnte). As
    Etymonline explains: "The unetymological -l- was added 15c.-16c.
    on model of would, should, where it is historical."

    --
    Christian "naddy" Weisgerber [email protected]

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