Lieutenant (pronunciation)

Ponders SG

I think must take a look at the history of the word..

maybe is old-german or old-french.

do remember that german is Leut-nant (loit Nant)

laurence82 SG

yah, but where did the English language come from?

Twisted Evil

Obersturmfuhrer SG

US Navy O2 is called a Lieutenant (JG), Lieutenant refers to grade O3 or the Army Captain equivalent.

comberbache SG

If I'm not mistaken, "lieutenant" is the French word for "assistant" or something like that.

Hence, we have lieutenants "assisting" a senior officer as PCs and 2ICs. Also, the word "in lieu of" means "in place of".

Other European nations incorporated the word into their military ranks (including the British, and hence, Singapore).

Xfr8dog SG

If we want to pronounce it the British way, then:

Army = Lef-tenant
Navy = Lieu-tenant

Now what?

Since the word is neither American nor English, but French, shouldn't it be pronounced the French way?

How did Lieu become Lef? The English did have a way of mangling foreign words to suit their lack of lingual dexterity.

Mumbai - Bombay
Singapura - Singapore
Yangon - Rangoon
Myanmar - Burma

Ponders SG

Bombay have been pronounced as Bombay till about 1996 when the Indian government decided that city names should follow its founding name. Thus Bombay revert to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai.

Mumbai is derived from Mumbadevi (an hindu goddess). Bombay is derived from Bom Bahia (portuguese). It has nothing to do with fitting to English.

Same goes for Myanmar and Burma.

As for Lieutanent.

It seems the only plausible explanation was that during 14th century, when english script was still evolving. Roman Letter U and V were not yet standardised (Roman U was spelt as V). Therefore there was a mixture of ppl who pronounced it then LieVtenant, and LieUtenant.

Hope this helps.

coffeeortea SG

lol..

in left (lieu) of dying, i chose to live

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