A good piece by Dot Wordsworth in The Spectator this week (on superstitions about the use of “between”) includes this fascinating sidelight:
A good counter-example comes in a translation made in 1856 by John Williams of a Welsh grammar compiled 600 years earlier by Ederyn [sic; should be Edeyrn] the Golden Tongued: ‘A syllable that terminates with four consonants, having the obscure pronunciation of the mutescent y between each is called confertisparsison.’ (That word is from Latin confertus ‘crowded’, sparsus ‘sparse’ and sonus ‘sound’, and I look forward to being able to use it one distant day.)
Paul, who sent me the link, asks, “since there is a word to describe this form when four consonants are involved, should there not also be a word when only three are to be found?” I myself would economically (or lazily) extend the use of “confertisparsison,” but you might be able to find the proper term in the Edeyrn/Williams table.
Recent Comments