Haplology is a technical linguistic term which refers to a process in spoken language whereby an entire syllable, or part of one, which is identical or very similar to one in an adjacent syllable, goes missing from an utterance.
An often cited example in contemporary English is the pronunciation of the word library as “libry”, with two syllables instead of the three suggested by the spelling. Other common English-language examples include particularly said as “particuly”, probably as “probly”, February as “Febry”, deteriorate as “deteriate”, and secretary as “secatry”.
Linguists sometimes wittily refer to haplology as “haplogy”. To introduce yet another technical term, this particular joke involves the coining of an autological word, meaning a word whose own form provides an example of the phenomenon which it describes. A similar linguistic joke using autology involves the pronouncing of metáthesis as “methátesis”.
But what triggers haplology – why do speakers omit whole syllables? The basic answer is that speaking is a very complex activity indeed, requiring synchronised rapid micro-second timing and micro-millimetre accuracy in the movement of the tongue, teeth and vocal cords and other speech organs; in addition, there is a constant tension between the desire of the speaker for ease of articulation, on the one hand, and the need of the listener for ease of perception, on the other.
Elision is a related phenomenon, referring to the omission of a (usually unstressed) speech sound or sounds in order to make for greater ease of articulation in fluent speech. Examples include pronunciations such as “camra” for camera and “pleece” for police.
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People are sometimes inclined to invoke the pejorative notion of laziness when discussing issues having to do with the articulation of speech sounds, particularly when it comes to the omission of sounds. But in some cases, haplology is actually compulsory in English, and teachers of English as a Foreign Language will need to inform non-native learners of the language that they are wrong if they fail to employ it. Haplology has to occur in the case of English adverbs which are formed out of adjectives ending in -le. For example, in the case of gentle, we do not say “gentle-ly” but “gently”. Similarly we say “ably” and not “able-ly”.
Speakers of American English seem less inclined to employ haplology and elision than British English speakers. British people know that the city name Worcester is usually pronounced with two syllables, “Wooster”, while many Americans instead say “Wor-ses-ter”, with three.
This process, of course, does not just happen in English. Examples from languages other than English include German Zaubererin, (female) “wizard” or “magician”, being reduced in pronunciation to “Zauberin”.
We have seen in a previous column that the Greek word dipló “double”, as in Modern Greek espresso dipló “double espresso”, has given us the word diploma, because a diploma in ancient times was a document which was traditionally folded in two before being handed over. The opposite term is apló “single”, as in espresso apló “single espresso”. The Ancient Greek form of this word was hapló, which is what gives us our contemporary English word haplology – from aplós “simple” and lógos “speech” – referring to the reduction or simplification of two syllables to a single syllable.
Espresso
The word espresso first entered the English language in 1945 as an abbreviation of the originally Italian phrase caffè espresso “expressed coffee”, with expressed being used in the sense of “pressed out”. Espresso is the past participle of Italian esprimere, from Latin exprimere “squeeze out, press out”. This word reflects the process of brewing coffee by forcing hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee beans.
