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Help[Facts] Re: Leigh vs Lee
in reply to a message by LMS
Neither incorrect or correct, really. I "tend to" pronounce Leigh just as you described.
I love to see the spelling Leigh. Prior to the printing press, the letter "g" retained both the Carolingian pronunciation of the hard g - as in the sport "golf"; and it was previously (con)fused with the letters J & Y within different locations - throughout hundreds of years. The letter "j" (with the letter "y") still bears modern examples of this con-fusion as well. I am happy that we spell the word "Joke" as we do, rather than "Ghoke" - a soft "g" with an extensive aspiration represented by the letter "h". The shape of the letter characters which the middle English alphabet retained are partial reason for these confusions. There is much more to it all than these broad generalizations, but for the sake of brevity, I hope these help.
Our conventional spellings still retain traces of this con-fusion - as in the words "fight", "fright" & "night"; still compare these spellings with the word "ghost". Some pronounced "night" with a hard "g" while others pronounced the word more as what we now know of as the consonant form of the letter "Y" - as in yellow. One can only wonder why we see ghosts at night - but hear the g (gh) letters resounding differently.
To add to this confusion, we have words like "laugh", "tough", and "enough" - by which the "gh" serves the sonority of what we now represent by the letter "f". So I "laugh" at those who see "ghosts" at only "night" - but truly, I wonder what they heard, back in the "night".
I'd be excited to learn that a teacher would allow a student to alternate the spelling of any of these words - so long as the student would support the argument with the history of our "still changing" spelling conventions.
I love to see the spelling Leigh. Prior to the printing press, the letter "g" retained both the Carolingian pronunciation of the hard g - as in the sport "golf"; and it was previously (con)fused with the letters J & Y within different locations - throughout hundreds of years. The letter "j" (with the letter "y") still bears modern examples of this con-fusion as well. I am happy that we spell the word "Joke" as we do, rather than "Ghoke" - a soft "g" with an extensive aspiration represented by the letter "h". The shape of the letter characters which the middle English alphabet retained are partial reason for these confusions. There is much more to it all than these broad generalizations, but for the sake of brevity, I hope these help.
Our conventional spellings still retain traces of this con-fusion - as in the words "fight", "fright" & "night"; still compare these spellings with the word "ghost". Some pronounced "night" with a hard "g" while others pronounced the word more as what we now know of as the consonant form of the letter "Y" - as in yellow. One can only wonder why we see ghosts at night - but hear the g (gh) letters resounding differently.
To add to this confusion, we have words like "laugh", "tough", and "enough" - by which the "gh" serves the sonority of what we now represent by the letter "f". So I "laugh" at those who see "ghosts" at only "night" - but truly, I wonder what they heard, back in the "night".
I'd be excited to learn that a teacher would allow a student to alternate the spelling of any of these words - so long as the student would support the argument with the history of our "still changing" spelling conventions.
This message was edited 6/17/2018, 3:30 AM
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