back-spelling

• backspelling

From back +‎ spelling.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbækˌspɛlɪŋ/

back-spelling

1. An unetymological, often hypercorrect, spelling of a word created by analogy with other words which (usually through loss of a sound or its phonetic merger with other sounds) have become similar to it.

   Synonym: inverse spelling

   Modern English numb is a back-spelling, because this word never had a /b/ in it. The back-spelling is based on words such as lamb, which had once ended in /b/, but where this sound was lost and the letter b became silent.

   • 1996, Eric Gerald Stanley, “Late Copies of Anglo-Saxon Charters”, in Studies in English Language & Literature: "doubt Wisely" : Papers in Honour of E.G. Stanley, page 55:

     For example, in D and w, e is a possible reflex for OE y: (29) cysan, presumably a back-spelling for cesen < ceosen, and (40) hylle, a back-spelling for helle.

   • 1997, Roger Lass, Historical Linguistics and Language Change‎^[1], page 63:

     Another very important type is hypercorrect or inverse spelling (Rückschreibung, backspelling). Here a segment that has been lost or altered is spelled in the 'wrong' environment, suggesting that the writer knows that some words have it by convention, but not precisely which.

   • 2016, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Phillips, Jonathan Riley-Smith, “Languages in Contact in the Latin East”, in Crusades‎^[2], volume 1, page 173:

     The absence of the epenthetic consonant in ⲖⲈⲬⲞⲨⲬⲞⲨⲘⲈⲢⲈ lekhukhumere seems to reflect a phenomenon of backspelling.

• The term back-spelling is usually only applied when the change is towards a less phonetic or less “straightforward” spelling. For example, if lamb had been changed to *lam, this would not be considered back-spelling (or at any rate not in the strict sense).