Hello! First post here, hope no-one minds my starting a new thread straight away.

I've come across the spelling 'r ô l e' for 'role' quite frequently of late, and got to wondering where this odd spelling comes from.

Is this just an old way of spelling the word, or is there some archaic pronunciation difference between role and 'rô le'?

P.s. The context was quite varied: a 1950's philosophy article by Hilary Putnam and John LeCarre's 'Our Game' being two examples that come to mind at the moment.

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Edited for weird formatting

Welcome aboard, P.
At first I rhought one "role" was spelled phonetically but then realized you had spaces between the letters. I've never seen "ro le" anywhere but that doesn't mean anything. Arnie or Z would have more knowledge on this than I. Hang around and see what they have to say about it.

Hi, platonique. Rôle is just a variant spelling of role. In French, the word is spelled rôle. It does not change the pronunciation or the meaning.

Interesting point, platonique. It seems we got the word from French, and (as zmj notes) in French it's spelled rôle, with the circumflex.

That said, OED's earliest cites have different spellings. It's spelled rowle in the earliest (1606), and roll in the next-earliest (1692).

Welcome aboard, sir! I like your style!

I suspect that there are two things going on in the minds of writers when they choose between "role" and "rôle".

Some probably just think that "rôle" should be correct and that people who spell it "role" are mistaken. These will most likely be the same people who decry split infinitives and singular "they".

Others are probably well aware that the customary modern spelling is without the accent but who believe that using the accented modern version lends their writing an air of sophistication.

Of course, English is as near to being an accentless language as makes no difference. Those few words that take an accent are generally borrowed from another language in any case.

Those words that have been absorbed into English and retain their accent - protégé, for example - would seem ostensibly to do so to guide pronunciation. But seeing as though we seem to cope well enough with our eccentric pronuniciations - words such as Penelope spring to mind - without the aid of accents, I can forsee a time when all such devices are a thing of the past.

And so far as the circumflex accent is concerned, seeing as though its sole purpose in life is to show that a vowel is lengthened in some languages (but not English) - I see no reasons for its presence in "role".

The interesting thing about the circumflex in the French is that it became (in the 16th century) a part of the French orthography after the word had first been borrowed into late Middle English. Its use is to indicate that a 'letter' is missing which should etymologically follow the vowel it crowns. This is usually an s, e.g., the older estre 'to be' is now être. The Old French word that rôle descends from was rolle 'roll (of parchment)' from Latin rotula 'little wheel' < rota. In French, it sometimes indicates a different pronunciation of the vowel, but more often it does not. It's simply a way to distinguish homophones. The circumflex has other uses in different languages, e.g., in Vietnamese, it indicates tone. Some languages use it over consonants to indicate a different manner of articulation.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Others are probably well aware that the customary modern spelling is without the accent but who believe that using the accented modern version lends their writing an air of sophistication.

I suspect this too. I associate it with people who insist on writing to-day, to-morrow etc. I am a fan of writing well, but do get frustrated when writers use their words like weapons in class warfare.

Then again, I suppose it is plausible that to some this is just how the word is spelled. I always think that people who write 'gaol' are being pretentious, but some insist they were taught that spelling from day one.

quote:

always think that people who write 'gaol' are being pretentious, but some insist they were taught that spelling from day one

How else would one spell gaol?

quote:

How else would one spell gaol?

'Jail' is standard in SA English. I believe in American too.

platonique, you will need to get used to Richard. This is his little joke. He is perfectly well aware of the "jail" spelling as it is the normal spelling in the UK too. It has been many years since "gaol" was the preferred spelling here.

Though he may subsequently deny it he is playing up to the very stereotype that you previously mentioned.

Just one of his little foibles.

gaol

If I had my druthers, I'd spell it jeil. Some of the spellings which the OED lists are: gayhol, gayhole, gaylle, gaille, gaole, gayl, gayl, gayole, gaiol, gaol, goal, goale, iaiole, iaile, jaiol, jaol, etc.

Be not fond of his his foibles for he is fissile and fulminates freely.

Asa, who thinks "Penelope" is prounced "Penny-lope," and can't quite figure out how to say, "Reading Gaol"

PS, welcome to the madhouse!

quote:

He is perfectly well aware of the "jail" spelling as it is the normal spelling in the UK too. It has been many years since "gaol" was the preferred spelling here.

I have never heard of anyone in the UK spelling "gaol" as "jail" - and I would never dream of spelling it that way. I do not agree that it is the normal spelling in most of the UK - although it might be thus in the Black Country, I suppose.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
I would never dream of spelling it that way.

Oh, I don't doubt that for one second.

Just for info, in the eight years that I worked for the police I never saw or heard of anyone on any UK force ever using the old-fashioned (if not downright archaic) "gaol".

For information some Google stats.

Using google.co.uk

"jail" (UK only) 2,410,000
"gaol" (UK only) 488,000
"jail" (web) 54,800,000
"gaol" (web) 1,730,000

I'd say that this supports my contention that whether we are talking about the UK or worldwide "jail" is by far the more common spelling.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

In 1926, W H Fowler wrote in the entry for gaol, gaoler, jail, jailer, &c. in his superlative Modern English Usage:

quote:

'In British official use the forms with G still current; in literary & journalistic use both the G & the J forms are now admitted as correct, but all recent Dictionaries give the preference to the latter.'—OED. It may be added that the very anomalous pronunciation of g soft before other vowels than e, i, & y (only in mortgagor & in the popular mispronunciation of margarine?) is a strong argument for writing jail. The spellings of the agent-nouns to which the OED gives precendence are jailer & jaileress.

The main entry in the OED1 is under jail. There is an entry for gaol which cross references to jail. The volume with the jail entry was published in 1901 during the reign of Queen Victoria (of recent memory). Reading Gaol was redesignated as HM Reading Prison. In 1992, it became a remand centre for young offenders. (In the quaint variety of barbarous English spoken in the the North American colonies, juvy or juvenile hall. Oscar Wilde wrote De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol there while a guest of HM government. Darrell Figgis, another Irishman and a Sinn Féin activist, was gaoled in Reading and wrote a book about his time there called A Chronicle of Jails[ sic], 1917. The American, Stacy Keach, also was a guest for his foolhardy attempt to bring cocaine into the UK; he served nine months.