Why do we drop the "d" in the word "Wednesday" to make it sound like "Wensday" when pronounced ?

Answer 1

zberryfunk does a good job of explaining that way sounds in a word are naturally changed to ease pronunciation. And some of the things he mentions may at least partly explain how we came to say "Wensday".

BUT that doesn't entirely explain the spelling. Nor even the pronunciation. In fact, the written records show that it was all a bit messier than that. Apparently the pronunciation varied through the centuries and from one dialect to another. (And to this day there are some dialects in which the 'd' can still be heard. Some of this is documented in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

A couple of obervations and suggestions:

1) SPELLING
We retained the spelling with 'd' either because dialects that pronounced it were dominant (or at least 'won out' on this point) OR from the desire of teachers and grammarians to preserve some of the ROOT form of the word ("Wodens-die" and the like) even when it was no longer pronounced (something scholarly sorts have OFTEN done, at times even inserting unpronounced letters "back" into words they believed had come from a particular root). OR maybe is was some of each.

But though the "d" won in the SPELLING fight, "wensday" won the PRONUNCIATION battle.

2) PRONUNCIATION
At least one of the written forms listed in the OED is wendesdei (from ca. 1275). This inversion of letters (called "metathesis") to simplify the pronounciation is another common occurrence in spoken language. Compare the word "comfortable" which is widely pronounced as "comfterbl" or even [losing the r entirely"comtubl"].

Notice that these sorts of changes -- loss of middle sounds, esp. vowels (called "syncope" or "elision") and metathesis -- are very common in the UN-accented syllables of longer words.

At any rate, a pronuciation "Wendesday" > "Wendsday" is very easy to understand. And note that if you can scarcely hear a difference between "wends" and "wens". That's because the d an z-sounding s are both voiced AND pronounced at the same point in the mouth. [Cf. how "scents" and "sense" sound the same, despite the T in the first.]

Answer 2

This is due to a process that linguists call conservation of articulatory effort. This just means that sounds are reduced in order to make the word easier for your mouth to say. Both /d/ and /n/ have the same place of articulation- if you pay attention to where your tongue touches when you say /d/ (behind your top teeth on what is called the alveolar ridge if you're a native English speaker) you will notice that is the same place your tongue touches when you say /n/. When you say /dn/ together, your tongue doesn't have to move at all. Historically, When Wed-nes-day was shortened to 2 syllables (you don't say the 2nd /e/) people would have to pronounce /dns/ together. Since /dn/ together sound almost the same as /n/ by itself in this situation, the next generation heard only /n/, and that is how we say it today.

Answer 3

The t must be pronounced. Are you specific they recommend "mistress" in that music? some people say "misses" for "Mrs." that's a call for a married woman, no longer inevitably a mistress.

Answer 4

I think zberryfunk has the right idea. It's rather difficult to say a "d" sound followed by an "n" sound clearly because you put your tongue in the same place when you say them. It's much easier to just say one sound.

Answer 5

who knows. the english language is very very screwed up
there is a stupid rule for everything, and sometimes you can break the rules, but only on some words. its confusing and a bad idea. we should all speak french

Answer 6

In the UK we don't. It should be pronounced something like "weddens-dee"

Answer 7

maybe because it sounds weird if you say Wed-nes-day

Answer 8

Why don't we spell xylophone "zylophone"?

Answer 9

Do we? I don't!