— For Vicki Fromkin, may her memory never grow less
ATMIDDEDLY for ADMITTEDLY, in my typing up a posting a couple of days ago. Which is, first of all, an (inadvertent) exchange of the consonant letters D and T. And then involves maintaining the positions for single vs. doubled consonant letters, in the frame
Aℒ1MIℒ2ℒ2EDLY (where ℒi is a variable over letters)
A complex error that highlights the kind of mental planning that goes on in writing or typing text: I had to choose the two letters ℒ1 and ℒ2 (and get them in the right order); and at the same time choose which one of them is single and which doubled. (For a refreshing change from some of the other spelling errors I’ve looked at recently, this one has, as far as I can tell, nothing to do with the positions of the keys on the QWERTY keyboard.)
The background on this blog. First, on the choice and ordering of the letters. From my 12/3/21 posting “An American tradegy”, on the (inadvertent) exchange, transposition, or — technical term, metathesis — of two consonants in speech, or two consonant letters in spelling, in particular on tradegy for tragedy (in both speech and spelling). From this posting:
there seems to be some tendency for metathesis to be favored for consonants that are highly similar [phonetically]
I looked at examples of transposed n and m, p and k, d and ǰ. (Note: p and k are acoustically quite similar, and are often treated as half-rhyming and confused in perception, as when I heard, this morning, a commercial for a debt-relief company as offering protection against predators, when what the commercial actually said was creditors.) To which I can now add d and t in admittedly.
Then, on the choice of single versus doubled letters in spelling. Let me take you back to my 10/13/18 posting “Chic peas and more”, where I wrote:
The spelling cippolini [onions] is a straightforward error for cipollini, but one that’s incredibly attractive. The first thing to note is that the error has the form of a very common kind of typo, the misplaced geminate: you know that some expression you’re about to type or write has a doubled letter in it, but you double the wrong letter.
There I give the real-life spelling errors Old LOGG IN for Old LOG INN, and FAGOOT for FAGGOT. The larger point is that in spelling, doubling has a life of its own; the mental planning for spelling can involve both the choice of letters and also, independently, the choice of a single or doubled letter. What’s new in ATMIDDEDLY is that though the letters are transposed, the doubling is not — that would give ATTMIDEDLY — but instead maintains its position within the word.
I will say that when I typed ATMIDDEDLY, at first I saw it as, oh shit, a jumble of letters (thanks to my disabled fingers, I make typos by the hundreds in getting a posting together); but then I saw the patterns in the error and realized that I’d been granted a really cool gift for the ordinary working psycholinguist.
July 22, 2024 at 5:55 am |
On Facebook, Tim Evanson gives an example of misplaced doubling from his own writing that’s exactly parallel to my example of CIPPOLINI for CIPOLLINI:
July 22, 2024 at 7:08 am |
I perennially have this problem with “Cincinnati” – there’s a corner of my brain that’s never sure whether it’s the second n or the t that’s doubled. I had a similar problem with “Machu Picchu” – which c is doubled? – until I learned that the Quechua word for “peak” is properly pronounced with a hint of /k/ before the /č/.
July 22, 2024 at 8:55 am |
On Facebook, comment from Dennis Preston (noted specialist in sociolinguistics and dialect variation):
July 23, 2024 at 3:52 am |
I once saw a comment noting that the second part of MACHU PICCHU is an anagram of HICCUP. I can’t remember now why the commenter thought it was significant or interesting, but the observation is a mnemonic that helps me get the correct spelling.