Why was jail called gaol?
Why was jail called gaol?
They ultimately are the same word – Old Northern French used the form gayol and Parisian French the form jaile. Both forms existed in English but the form gaol was the one that had been taken on by British law. Of course the gaol spelling gives rise to the inevitable confusion between gaol and goal.
Is gaol an English word?
Gaol is an alternative spelling of jail, and it means the same thing. Historically, gaol was predominant in British English until roughly 1935, at which point jail became the more popular option.
Which is correct gaol or jail?
jail
A: Both are accepted – but “jail” is preferred. It admits that “in general, the spelling of this word has shifted in Australian English from gaol to jail”. However, it goes on to add that, “gaol remains fossilised in the names of jails, as Parramatta Gaol, and in some government usage”.
What language is gaol?
Because Middle English (the language spoken from about 1100 to 1500) adopted two distinct versions of the word from French. The “gaol” version comes from the Norman French gaiole or gaole, the OED says, while “jail” comes from the Old Parisian French jaiole or jaile.
Is jail and gaol pronounced the same?
In America, official documents favoured jail, which is why it still seems to us American, although the pronunciation, derived from Parisian French, was identical on both sides of the Atlantic. Whatever the OED said, the Oxford University Press style remained gaol.
Is the word gaol Irish?
Scottish Gaelic From Middle Irish gáel (“relationship”).
How is gaol Spelt in Australia?
Perhaps there’s good reason that the Australian affinity for gaol lingered longer than it did even in Britain: the spelling ‘gaol’ has, in the words of the Macquarie Dictionary, been ‘fossilised in names’. From Ballarat to Perth, Australia has many gaols baked into its toponymic landscape.
How do you pronounce gaol in Irish?
Pronunciation
- (Munster) IPA: /ɡeːl̪ˠ/, [ɡëːə̯l̪ˠ]
- (Connacht) IPA: /ɡiːlˠ/
- (Ulster) IPA: /ɡiːlˠ/, (older) /ɡɯːlˠ/
How is jail spelled in the UK?
While ‘gaol’ was the spelling of choice for discerning Britons for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, by the 21st ‘jail’ had replaced ‘gaol’ in the British National Corpus by a ratio of 3:1.