It's not even his name, and since I coined it(I think, or it might've been his friends at school) I spelled it with two L's just because that's how it ocurred to me to spell it originally. I figured you spell Phillip with two L's and something like Bill with two L's.
You'd know this better than I would, why it it Bill and not Bil? Is there a rule or something that would make it Phil?
English spelling is a sticky wicket which sometimes just does whatever it wants, but the majority of the time it follows certain patterns. These patterns help us read and write new words.
When it comes to Bill/Bil, I think the choice to retain the double el comes from the necessity of the double el in the spelling of the original name, William, to the correct pronunciation. "Wiliam", one el, would produce a pronunciation like "why lee um" instead of the correct "whi lih um". (BTW, William became Bill through some freak of Irish pronunciation of William. Cf. Siobhan and witness the freakishness of Irish pronunciation at work.)
The same is not true of Phillip. In this case, the double el is a technically unnecessary orthographic quirk. It doesn't make Phillip contrast with Philip in its pronunciation. Interestingly enough, this is reflected in the popularity of the Philip form over the Phillip form. According to Google, Philip (234,000,000 ghits) is more popular than Phillip (71,700,000 ghits) by a little more than three times. Using
( ... )
Comments 6
Reply
Reply
You'd know this better than I would, why it it Bill and not Bil? Is there a rule or something that would make it Phil?
Reply
When it comes to Bill/Bil, I think the choice to retain the double el comes from the necessity of the double el in the spelling of the original name, William, to the correct pronunciation. "Wiliam", one el, would produce a pronunciation like "why lee um" instead of the correct "whi lih um". (BTW, William became Bill through some freak of Irish pronunciation of William. Cf. Siobhan and witness the freakishness of Irish pronunciation at work.)
The same is not true of Phillip. In this case, the double el is a technically unnecessary orthographic quirk. It doesn't make Phillip contrast with Philip in its pronunciation. Interestingly enough, this is reflected in the popularity of the Philip form over the Phillip form. According to Google, Philip (234,000,000 ghits) is more popular than Phillip (71,700,000 ghits) by a little more than three times. Using ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment