I have a really sound, educational reason for watching 8 Out of 10 Cats does Countdown. It’s because I often learn something new – such as the word ‘aphesis’!
‘Aphesis’ is the gradual loss of an unstressed vowel sound or syllable at the beginning of a word. It comes from the Greek word ‘apo’ (meaning ‘from’) and ‘hienai’ (meaning ‘let go’ or ‘send’) – so literally ‘letting go from’.
The phenomenon is seen if you look at the etymology of words. For example, ‘lone’ comes from the shortening of ‘alone’, ‘live’ from ‘alive’ and ‘long’ from ‘along’.
However, it more commonly occurs in everyday speech (especially slang) and in Creole than in formal English.
Activity 1:
Add in the missing letter(s) from these words in which the first sound or syllable used to be pronounced. Look at the etymology of the word and discuss how the removal of the letter(s) has changed the meaning of the original word. A useful resource for this information is: https://www.etymonline.com/
| cute | fend | way |
| mend | cause | squire |
| ply | tend | spy |
| drawing-room | sport | stain |
Answers: acute, defend, away, amend, because, esquire, apply, attend/intend, espy, withdrawing-room, disport, distain,
Activity 2:
Make a list of words in which you and your friends often don’t pronounce the first sound or syllable (e.g., ‘fess’ instead of ‘confess’).
Reference