Why is "Wednesday" pronounced so differently than its spelling? What's the history?

Question

All the other days of the week are pretty straight forward in their pronunciation/spellling, so just wondering...

Answer 1

Just so you can look up the FULL articles that earlier answers cut-and-pasted (but failed to source):

PakiGirl copied from -
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010518
Nica copied from-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wednesday

(That's OK, but you should TELL us where you copied it from... and I recommend editing down what you copy to material that is related to the question. A lot of the wikipedia article is certainly NOT.)

Oddly, PakiGirl failed to continue in the article, to an important part and sound-reversal ("metathesis"), which I'll say a bit more on below.

DO check out that whole article ("Maven's Word of the Day" has a lot of other cool stuff too!)

I'll try to supplement, not just repeat what they say:


We start with the fact that the pronunciation varied through the centuries and from one dialect to another, as has been mentioned. (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.)

The articles mentioned, and other answers, have said a little bit about how some of these variations arise. But I'm not sure they do as much with how WE got the current unmatched COMBINATION of spelling and pronunciation . . which is, I assume, what you are mainly asking about!

For that I offer these observations 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 pronunciation 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 pronunciation "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.]

See also:
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010518
http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2003/1192.html

Answer 2

Wednesday is literally "Woden's day," from Old English Wodnesdaeg (Wodnes 'belonging to Woden' and daeg 'day'). Wodnesdaeg is related to Old Frisian Wonsdei or Wensdei. This doesn't begin, by the way, to cover the more than thirty spelling variations listed in the OED in the evolution of the term. Some include the d from Woden's name (e.g., Weodnesdei) and some do not (e.g., Wennessday). The current spelling Wednesday, first attested in about 1300, took some five hundred years to become the established form.

The change in the first vowel, in both spelling and pronunciation, from o = (oh) to e = (eh), remains a scholarly mystery. We won't get into the technical arguments. And historically, that floating, elusive characteristic of the letter d (is it in or is it out?) has also been reflected in the pronunciation. According to the OED, an "uncontracted pronunciation (WED-nz-day) ... is not unfrequently heard from speakers belonging to the northern and north midland counties." They're talking about England, of course, but I swear I've occasionally heard it in the U.S.

The change in pronunciation from (WED-nz) to (WENZ), with (d) dropped, can be explained in several ways. It can be seen simply as an example of syncope, the loss of one or more sounds from the middle of a word. But that loss in turn may be due in part to dissimilation, the process by which a speech sound becomes different from a neighboring sound, or even disappears entirely, because that neighboring sound is either identical or similar. Here we have the (d) in (WED-nz) in very close proximity to the (d) in (day). (Analogous d-dropping has occurred in some place names, like the English town of Wensley,--which started out as Wodneslei, where the (d) and the (l) are both alveolar sounds, made by touching the tongue to the gum ridge behind the front teeth.)

Answer 3

How To Spell Wednesday

Answer 4

Actually, the correct pronunciation is the way it is spelled and the "d" should be sounded. People say "Wensday" because it is easier, they heard it that way all of their lives, they don't want to be set apart from others, etc. This sort of thing has many examples such as dropping the "g" in words like going or contracting two words into one like "going to" becoming "gonna." It's sloppy speech that has become common usage.

Answer 5

Watching tv is simpler but I enjoy reading books more

Answer 6

while reading a written e book, you're stimulating your brain. You make your literacy and reading skills and you along the way, become more literate. Despite having today's modern technology, you need to be able to read still.
While you're watching t.v. can be good fun, it is not doing anything to the human brain.

Answer 7

Wednesday is considered either the third or the fourth day of the week, between Tuesday and Thursday. The name comes from the Middle English Wednes dei, which is from Old English Wodnes dæg, meaning the day of the Germanic god Woden (Wodan) who was a god of the Anglo-Saxons in England until about the 7th century. Wodnes dæg is like the Old Norse Oðinsdagr ("Odin's day"), which is an early translation of the Latin dies Mercurii ("Mercury's day"). Although Mercury (the messenger of the gods) and Woden (the king of the Germanic gods) are not equivalent in most regards, both gods guided the souls of the dead to the underworld.

When Sunday is taken as the first of the week, the day in the middle of each week is Wednesday. Arising from this, the German name for Wednesday has been Mittwoch (literally: "mid-week") since the 10th Century, having displaced the former name: Wodanstag ("Wodan's day"). The Finnish name is similarly practical: Keskiviikko (literally: "center of the week") as is the Icelandic name: Miðvikudags ("Mid-week day").

According to the Hebrew Bible, Wednesday is the day when the Sun and Moon were created.

Wednesday is also in the middle of the common 5-day working week which starts on Monday and finishes on Friday. However, see also Thursday.

In Romance languages it is derived from the name of the Roman god Mercury: mercredi (French), mercoledì (Italian), miércoles (Spanish), miercuri (Romanian), dimecres (Catalan), dies Mercurii (Latin). Similarly, the Hindi name for Wednesday, Budhvar is derived from the Vedic name for Mercury, Budh. Russian does not use pagan names but instead uses sredá, meaning "middle," similar to the German Mittwoch. Likewise, Portuguese uses the word quarta-feira, meaning "fourth day."

An English language idiom for Wednesday is "hump day", a reference to making it through to the middle of the work week as getting "over the hump". It is also unofficially referred to as "the peak of the week".

Quakers traditionally refer to Wednesday as "Fourth Day", eschewing the pagan origin of the name "Wednesday". Most eastern languages also use a name with this meaning, for much the same reason. Faithful Orthodox Christians observe a vegetarian / fish-only fast on Wednesdays (and Fridays) in some countries such as Greece.

In Thailand, a certain amount of people believe cutting hair on Wednesday will bring bad luck, many traditional barber shops in Thailand close on this day.

Wednesday The Movie is a short film produced by Joel Nassan. It has won many awards including the Jimmy Stewart Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland Film Festival. you can see the 9 minute film at www.wednesdaythemovie.com.

In the nursery rhyme, "Wednesday's Child is full of woe".

The film Angel Heart includes a scene where Harry Angel refers to Wednesday as "Anything Can Happen Day," in reference to the original Mickey Mouse Club television program.

In the 19th century in some northern counties of England, particularly Yorkshire, Wednesday was a designated half-day (afternoon) off work. The English Association Football team Sheffield Wednesday was formed according to the day on which they played their matches. The team was officially known as The Wednesday until in 1929, when under the stewardship of manager Bob Brown, the club was renamed to Sheffield Wednesday.

Wednesday Friday Addams is a member of the fictional Addams Family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams for The New Yorker.

For residents of New England, Wednesday is "Prince Spaghetti Day", as proclaimed by Lowell, Massachusetts.

Along with every other day of the week, Drowned Wednesday is the third book in the Keys to the Kingdom series.

* South Korea Electrection in Wednesday. Electrection days Weekend near, Vote Percent Littler.

The lead singer of The Murderdolls is called Wednesday.

From comedian Dane Cook: -"Back in the day, which is always a Wednesday."

Wednesday Mourning is an American Gothic Model.

Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m. is a song by Simon and Garfunkel. In Neil Gaiman's American Gods, the god Odin (Woden being the origin of the word Wednesday) refers to himself as Wednesday.

The astrological sign of the planet Mercury represents Wednesday -- Dies Mercurii to the Romans, with similar names in Latin-derived languages, such as the French Mercredi and the Spanish Miércoles. In English, this became "Woden's Day", since the Roman god Mercury was identified with Woden in northern Europe.

Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, occurs forty days before Easter, not counting Sundays.
Spy Wednesday is an old name given to the Wednesday immediately preceding Easter, in allusion to the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot.