Job Discussion Forums

[guilao]

Both are correct, depending on which side of the pond you're in.

[once again]

Now I am far from an expert of this but...given that the root word seems to be the Latin CENTRUM, doesn't the change to 'er' go against the original root?

If centER, then why not centERAL?
The American spelling is the same as the British for central, so is this not a contradiction?

Not looking to cause an argument here, just intrigued!

[Yu]

Depends where you are.....

[guilao]

None of us are experts here, and I certainly don't want to argue for anything other than simplicity in teaching. The point I had tried to express is that by allowing the addition of "-s" we could be making the logic behind the word change fuzzy for students. IMHO it sounds retarded to add "-s" with both of these words; I'm not going to allow my second-language students to sound retarded if I can help it.

"Centrum" was not an infinitive to my understanding, but a Latinized spelling of the Greek noun "kentron". Hence its etymological stem is "centrum".

However, the morphological root is "centr"; -"re" and "-er" are British and American spellings of the same syllabic ar sound. Note that if you try to say the imaginary word "centr", you will syllabicize the final consonant. With this in mind, we could say the infinitive ("to center") is "centr", and get simple morphological derivatives as with "curricul":

Add "-um" = singular
Add "-al" = adjectival
Add "-a" = plural

Or we could be lazy, and add "-s" to the "-um" singular form which still has an ACCEPTABLE meaning, according to the crack-smokers who compile dictionaries.

Looking at the adjectival affixes, one question surfaces that reinforces my point. Why not "curriculal" and "centrar"? The answer is dissimulation from the final consonant of the root, a further proof that the final sounds of the true morphological roots are el and ar respectively.

What is acceptable for comprehension and what sounds like lazy English can often be one and the same. Dictionaries, by highlighting etymology, obfuscate morphology to the detriment of true understanding of language. IMHO, they should be banned from the language classroom!