Debt used to be spelled dette or simply det. We spell it with a useless silent “b” today because meddlers decided to bring it back to its Latin roots of debitum. This happened in French as well, even though neither language ever pronounced the “b” and had no business adding it. The same happened with words like doubt, plumber, subtle, indict, and island. French was sensible enough to reverse this through modern spelling reform, but I think English is stuck with it for the foreseeable future.
Yep. It’s a bit hard to fathom today, but in the Middle Ages few people had the ability to read and write, mostly either learned monks and clergy, or those wealthy enough to be taught by them. With such a small pool of people, it’s comparatively easy to influence the prevailing spelling through the actions of a few.
Can you give an example?
Debt used to be spelled dette or simply det. We spell it with a useless silent “b” today because meddlers decided to bring it back to its Latin roots of debitum. This happened in French as well, even though neither language ever pronounced the “b” and had no business adding it. The same happened with words like doubt, plumber, subtle, indict, and island. French was sensible enough to reverse this through modern spelling reform, but I think English is stuck with it for the foreseeable future.
Who had the power to unilaterally decree that the spelling of multiple existing words must now be spelled differently?
Yep. It’s a bit hard to fathom today, but in the Middle Ages few people had the ability to read and write, mostly either learned monks and clergy, or those wealthy enough to be taught by them. With such a small pool of people, it’s comparatively easy to influence the prevailing spelling through the actions of a few.