Once

I like this word because if you look at it, it just doesn’t make sense. Grammatically speaking (and correct me if I am wrong) The O can’t make the W sound with out a vowel to help it out. So hence, It doesn’t make sense.

Timothy Ward
Portland. OR

August 11th, 2010 | August 11th, 2010 | % | (17 votes, average: 7.12 out of 10)
 Loading ...

2 comments to Once

• Robert Groves

  August 13, 2010 at 8:03 am

  I will indeed correct you, as you are wrong. It should not be “grammatically speaking”; the range of sounds which can be represented by the letter “o” has nothing to do with grammar. Sounds and the letters which represent them are described in the fields of phonetics, phonology, and orthography.

  Also, there is historical precedent for the sound usually represent by the letter [o] in Indo-European languages from /o/ to /w/. The Ancient Greek word “oinos” (wine) is cognate with Latin “vinus” (wine). Both these words were once pronounced with an initial vowel, something like “oo-EE-nuss”. In everyday speech, people tend to pronounce words more quickly and sloppily, and the initial vowel shortens naturally to “w”, which is what we have in its Germanic cognate “win”, which is in fact the root of our English word “wine”.

  But none of this has anything to do with grammar.

• Raema

  August 15, 2010 at 3:56 pm

  Well, if you wonder why ‘one’ and ‘once’ sound so different from ‘only’ just think about Wednesday and the Norse God ODIN or Woden…where we got Wodin’s day…(and his son Thor’s day is the next day…Tuesday and Friday also).

  One and once have the same story…the “wo” sound…but as spelling was irregular eventually the “w” was dropped while leaving the same sound. It is a heritage from the Viking raids on the northern part of England, the Danelaw and the triumph of Northern English over the southern dialect.

40 queries. 1.006 seconds.