A Word on the Words

I am somewhat upset by the reference to a porridge “spirtle” on page 33 of The Sunday Post this week.

To my mind, it is a “spurtle”. I feel vindicated in my choice of spelling as the trophy the World Porridge Making Championship bestows upon the year’s best porridge maker is The Golden Spurtle (note that u, thank you very much).

However, a leaf through my extensive collection of dictionaries and thesauri gives alternatives of spurtel, spurtil and spartle for this Scottish kitchen tool. Which spelling is correct? Well, it would have to be admitted all of them are right. When words originate in the 15th Century, and are passed down the generations with no one bothering to record them in a dictionary, it is difficult to say which spelling is definitive.

It depends where you live, your accent or how your mother or grandmother pronounced it.

But while I can live with spurtles and spirtles – grudgingly – there are words with alternative spellings which are sanctioned by dictionaries but anathema to me.

Inquire, for instance, should start with an “i” because “enquire” looks wrong.

Similarly, I don’t see the need for the final “st” in “amongst”. Why needlessly lengthen “among”?

I don’t always go for the shorter version. I prefer inflammable to flammable, and towards rather than toward.

And I’d never write gaol, always jail.