Why do Brits pronounce lieutenant as leftenant?

Why do Brits pronounce lieutenant as leftenant? According to military customs, a lower ranking soldier walks on the left side of a senior officer. This courtesy developed when swords were still used on the battle

Why do Brits pronounce lieutenant as leftenant?

According to military customs, a lower ranking soldier walks on the left side of a senior officer. This courtesy developed when swords were still used on the battle field. The lower ranked soldier on the “left” protected the senior officers left side. Therefore, the term leftenant developed.

How do the British say lieutenant?

No one can really say why in the British Army the word is pronounced “left-tenant” but it’s notable that in the Royal Navy the pronunciation seems half way across the ocean. They drop the “f” and say “le-tenant.”

Is leftenant same as lieutenant?

As nouns the difference between lieutenant and leftenant is that lieutenant is (military) the lowest commissioned officer rank or ranks in many military forces while leftenant is an archaic spelling of lieutenant.

Why do the British say Zed?

The British and others pronounce “z”, “zed”, owing to the origin of the letter “z”, the Greek letter “Zeta”. This gave rise to the Old French “zede”, which resulted in the English “zed” around the 15th century.

Why are there different pronunciations of the word lieutenant?

It’s simply an attempt for English speakers to pronunce French phonemes, I don’t believe there’s an additional reason. The word appeared in English as “lieutenant”, and an alternative “leftenant” was made to stick to the pronunciation. The pronunciation being very difficult for English speaker.

Why do the British say lieutenant and the US say Loo?

It’s possible the US adopted “Loo” because and only because the Brits said “Lef” — or vice-versa. But it seems the answer is not known by the best scholars Oxford can produce. While it will always remain a mystery, I think that this goes back to the OF pronunciation of “lieu” to sound like “lyeuch”.

Which is the correct pronunciation of the word Caribbean?

Both are standard; however, there are a couple proper nouns containing the word Caribbean that have a fixed pronunciation: I personally make a sort of generalization from this and use #1 for the noun usage and #2 for the adjective usage, but there is no reason anyone else should use this rule unless they like it.

Where does the word Leftenant come from in English?

Maybe Russian and British English got the word through German, which regularly changes the ‘u/w’ sound to the ‘v’ sound; whereas we Americans took the pronunciation directly from French? (‘v’ naturally becomes a voiceless ‘f’ in assimilation to the following ‘t’ in many languages.)