Those Pesky Homophones Again …

Today’s homophone pair highlights an increasingly widespread misuse of the older word.

I was recently called a “trooper” in an email from a person (a stranger) who was expressing appreciation for my diligence. I was a bit annoyed initially, as I’ve never been a police officer or soldier—but then I remembered that this word and its homophone have been conflated for years. And no wonder: Dictionary.com does so right in its definition!

One might be tempted to think that one word originated as a misspelling of the other. It does happen, and sometimes deliberately: American English was a source of pride in and for the country’s newfound independence. That is not what happened in this case.

The Online Etymology Dictionary shows that the two words are quite different in age, but not so much in origin.

So the words are distant cousins timewise, and siblings etymologically. The word was so nice, English borrowed it twice. That isn’t uncommon—and is just one of the many ways English came to be so weird. To learn more about it and other oddities of English, hie thee to the RobWords YouTube channel. It is a great resource for word nerds.