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To distinguish between the word woman and women, we change the A to an E, but only change the pronunciation on the O. (lemm.ee)
submitted 3 months ago by JeSuisUnHombre@lemm.ee to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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w(uh)man to w(ih)men

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[-] ornery_chemist@mander.xyz 4 points 3 months ago

Best I can tell from quick internet searches: Old English: wīfmann/menn ("female person/s"). The w rounded the following vowel giving a wo- pronunciation, which for some reason (umlaut?) stuck for the singular but not the plural. The spelling of the plural changed to match that of the singular in spite of the pronunciation.

* Everything here carries the caveat "in some dialects, ..." because English

this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2024
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