I have never liked the world colonel. It is confusing and I don’t know what to think. There is no “r” so why do we say it? Am I saying the word wrong? When processing a series of correspondence of Colonel John Magee, I decided to look up the word, get some answers, and maybe stop hating a word because of the lack of information I know about it. Here is what I found.
Colonel comes from Old Italian word colonello meaning commander of a column of troops. Colonello of course comes from the Latin word columna, meaning pillar. So, that is the origin of the word, but there are still no “r’s” to explain why we pronounce the word as kernal or kernel.
Many nations adopted the Latin word of colonello and used it themselves. The French in the 1500’s adopted the word, and believe it or not, spelled and said the word as cornel. However, around 1540 the French decided to change the spelling to put it in conformity with the former version of the word. The spelling was changed to colonel, but the pronunciation was kept.
The English followed suit with the spelling and colonel became the common way to spell the word in English. Despite how it was spelled, and the mixed pronunciation at the time, the pronunciation of the Middle French word stuck. The word colonel was, and is still, stuck with an imaginary “r” in the middle of the word, despite not having an “r” in any of its origins, or in the word itself.
Colonel comes from Old Italian word colonello meaning commander of a column of troops. Colonello of course comes from the Latin word columna, meaning pillar. So, that is the origin of the word, but there are still no “r’s” to explain why we pronounce the word as kernal or kernel.
Many nations adopted the Latin word of colonello and used it themselves. The French in the 1500’s adopted the word, and believe it or not, spelled and said the word as cornel. However, around 1540 the French decided to change the spelling to put it in conformity with the former version of the word. The spelling was changed to colonel, but the pronunciation was kept.
The English followed suit with the spelling and colonel became the common way to spell the word in English. Despite how it was spelled, and the mixed pronunciation at the time, the pronunciation of the Middle French word stuck. The word colonel was, and is still, stuck with an imaginary “r” in the middle of the word, despite not having an “r” in any of its origins, or in the word itself.