Why isn't the word 'grammar' spelled 'grammer'? What's up with that?

Answer 1

1) Because the word was originally
gramarye (12th century), from O.Fr. grammaire
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=grammar

When the accent was on the second syllable this all worked just fine. But when in Modern English the accent shifted to the FIRST syllable, the vowel of the second, as typically happens in English (and MANY languages) was "reduced" to something that sounds more like short -e (though, in fact, it is not precisely an e).

Note that exactly the same 'vowel reduction' can happen with ALL the vowels. (Example related to this one -- all the agent-words ening in "-or" rathre than "-er"... such as 'actor' and 'realtor' [NOT pronounced "real-tore", whatever those silly radio announcers think!])

For more on shortened vowels like this see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa#Schwa_as_a_neutral_vowel

2) Because the SPELLING of this word, like many others, began to become fixed (around the time of the invention of the printing press) before the modern pronunciation had been established. This accounts for MANY of the confusing spellings of English -- that is, many of them WERE phonetically accurate, at least for some dialects of English, when they were first used.

3) Now some spellings HAVE changed/been updated since those times. BUT it is quite common that, if ANOTHER form of the same word includes a particular letter(s) which ARE pronounced as expected, the spelling is NOT changed.

In this case, think of "grammatical" and especially "GRAMMARIAN" -- in which the short a has the accent and is pronounced as an a.

This has the advantage of helping us SEE the relationship between words, My favorite examples of this are words where a letter has become silent in SOME forms, but not others -- like oft/often, soft/soften, chaste/chasten, haste/hasten, fast/fasten, autumn/autumnal. By keeping those silent letters you can SEE that the words are connected.

Answer 2

Hi,
the word 'grammar' IS spelled as 'grammer' -by people who either can't spell, or don't want to spell, correctly.

Many words are spelled differently in English. In the USA any word that in 'English' (UK) english is spelled with the letters 'our' at the end (e.g. colour, honour and so on) is spelled with just 'or' at the end (color, honor etc.)

Neither is wrong in the country they are used in. Many Englsh people agree that the American way of spelling words shows more common sense than the traditional (and original) English. (and, of course, many defend the original spellings as they've been around for far longer than the United States has been in existence)

But all people SHOULD make the effort to spell correctly, misspellings indicate a lack of education and poor spelling is hardly likely to help in any job application, is it?

And that sentence, I think, answers your question. 'What's up with that?'

'What's up' is that the misspeller will lose respect from people who can, and do, spell correctly.

Interesting question, though.

BobSpain

Answer 3

lol...I guess you didn't learn how to spell phonetically ....is it fonetically? The English language has all sort of inconsistencies. Why do people say they have to pre-prepare something? Why cant they just say prepare? or perhaps we pare something unless it needs preparing. Go figure.

Answer 4

For the same reason the word "chocolate" isn't spelled "chocolet". It's just the way it is.

Answer 5

because it shouldn't be just that easy like the way grammar actually is.

Answer 6

because it's one of English wired spelling..

Answer 7

It is spelt phonetically, not grammatically - 'grammetically' sounds too weird

Answer 8

um did u just learn english sir?