Learn English – “Quyer” When and why did the spelling change so drastically

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The snippet above is taken from The Gentleman's Magazine (London, England), Volume 53, dated, 1783. It's only when you say Quyer out loud, do you realize what the word is. It is one of the quirkiest spelled words in the English language today, choir, pronounced /ˈkwʌɪə/. Initially, quyer looks idiosyncratic and alien-looking, until you realize that the spelling is phonetic and what's more, it makes perfect sense. In addition, quyer looks English whereas the Modern English spelling of choir appears to be derived from the French choeur.

There are other instances of quyer in Google Books, published in 1715, 1726, 1772, and 1807

When did the present day spelling choir definitely replace that of quyer? Why wasn't the original (?), more English-looking, and more phonological qu kept?

EDIT
Many thanks to @Kris who kindly pointed out my error in the comments below.

When did the present day spelling choir supersede that of quyer ?" It
did? No. nGram cited by Josh demonstrates that choir always was
dominant, while quyer lived a secondary existence until c.1825, when
it pretty much disappeared

Best Answer

Quyer and choir possibly have different meanings.

From the context you gave, it looks like quyer is the equivalent of the modern-day word quire. A quire is not a group of singers, but rather it's the part of a church where those singers sit.

Choir is clearly a strongly related word, describing the group of singers. To muddy the water a bit, the spelling choir is also a commonly used alternative spelling for quire.

So it looks to me like rather than the spelling quyer dying out and being replaced by choir, the history of the words is more like this:

Before English spelling was codified, there were a variety of spellings for this word, and it could be used to refer both to the singers, and the place where they sit.
Once spelling started to standardize, people used quyer (and variations on it) for the place, and choir (and variations on it) for the singers.
Quyer looks kind of weird, and eventually evolved into quire, which looks like a more normal English spelling.
Nowadays, very few people who are not experts at church architecture will frequently encounter the word quire, so end up using choir instead, which would account for the declining usage of quire.

(I personally am only familiar with the term quire from having to sit in one at a wedding I recently attended.)

Related Solutions

Learn English – Why did Australian English change from spelling words like ‘honor’ to ‘honour’

I have researched this topic as well. I would like to point out a few aspects to this discussion that may be useful. First of all, it is correct (and Wikipedia says so as well) that today's Australian publications, including newspapers and digital media, almost without exception (except for certain proper nouns such as the Labor party and Victor Harbor) follow the UK norm of "-our" endings. It is correct that several Australian publications in the 20th century preferred the "-or" endings. Newspapers such as "The Age" from Melbourne and "The Advertiser" from Adelaide used the American "-or" spellings until the middle of the 1990's. They changed to British spellings in the second half of the 1990's probably with the advent of digitised and computerised publications. I think a similar trend occurred in Canadian newspapers as well.

I should add, though, that it is probably not accurate to claim that Australian spellings "changed" from American to UK norms. This gives the spurious impression that American spellings used to be preferred to UK spellings in the early 20th century. That seems to have never been the case as I argue below.

First of all, even when "-or" endings were more conspicuous in Australia, they were certainly not exclusive and co-existed with "-our" endings. For a Victor "Harbor" in South Australia, spelt without the "u", there was a Sydney "Harbour" bridge that was always spelt with the "u". Also, the "-or" spellings were probably the ONLY instances of American spelling norms co-existing in Australian publications. The more conspicuous differences such as "realise", "organise", "analyse" were always spelt using British/Commonwealth norms instead of the American style of ending with "-ze", as were "theatre" and "centre" or even "manoeuvre" (American spellings prefer "-er" endings), as also were "modelling" and "travelling" (American english prefers single "l"). It is, therefore, not correct to say (only on the presence of "-or" endings) that Australian spellings used to be closer to American spellings in the past. That seems never to have been the case. In fact, in spite of the use of "-or" endings, overall Australian spelling norms have always been closer to UK norms.

This, in my mind, also belies the argument that the prevalence of American dictionaries were the cause of American style spellings. I think the "-se/-ze" differences between American and British spellings are much more frequently seen in writings across the world than the "-our/-or" endings. Had American dictionaries been that influential in Australia, then the "-ze" endings (and the "-er" endings) would have likely been adopted in Australia as well. They never were.

To my mind, the most logical reason for the almost universal acceptance of British spelling norms in today's Australian English, including the apparent abandonment of the "-or" endings, took place because the "-or" endings, though seen more often in the early 20th-century than now, were never dominant and were still considered somewhat anomalous. With spell-checkers and computerised publishing, it would be easier to follow one norm, either UK or US, for spellings. The UK spellings were adopted probably because they were always more prevalent. Today, the only conspicuous American spelling in Australian media comes from the Australian "Labor" Party due to historical and political reasons (although "labour" with the "u" is the preferred spelling in all other contexts), and the use of the spelling "program" instead of "programme" in all contexts. Note that the Democratic Labo(u)r Party in Australia, that used to also spell "Labor" recently switched back to the UK spelling with the interesting comment: "Putting (YOU) back in Labo(u)r!" Perhaps the Australian Labor Party will also bring the "u" back in Labor in the not so distant future.

Finally, the near future of Australian spellings seems to be much more closely aligned with British norms. UK spellings are taught in schools, and in spite of Americanisms pervading all aspects of Australian society, including language, Australians probably will likely not change to American spellings because doing so may appear as a new type of cultural colonialism. If Canada, the next-door neighbour of the US, retains mostly UK spellings, it is difficult to see how and why Australia would switch to US spellings. Funny that all the commonwealth nations (read India, Pakistan, Singapore, Hong Kong) have taken to shunning so many practices of their colonisers (the British), but have all retained their spellings!

Learn English – How and when did American spelling supersede British spelling in the US

The answers to your questions are:

Yes, the shift was and continues to be a gradual and chaotic process.
No, there was not a a deliberate and possibly collective decision taken by the educational institutions, the media, or the government of the time.

Yes, there were a few changes that Webster tried, but the history of English spelling is much, much, much more complicated than that. English has never had a single agreed-upon spelling, even within any one country. There is no such thing as the American spelling, nor for that matter is there the British spelling, when discussing the English language. At most, there are individual words that may show a general predilection, but that shifts over time and within writers and publishers. It isn’t a simple us-vs-them situation almost in any pairing. There is too much historical variation.

Here is a summary of my findings below sorted by year:

always  inflection, inflexion
always  paralyzed, paralysed
always  tire, tyre
1680    surprize, surprise
1770    surprise, surprize
1810    jewelry, jewellery
1835    colored, coloured
1835    deputize, deputise
1845    armor, armour
1845    connection, connexion
1905    aluminum, aluminium
1905    woolen, woollen
1910    esophagus, oesophagus
1910    fetus, foetus
1915    leveled, levelled
1920    center, centre
1930    savior, saviour
1940    miter, mitre
1940    specter, spectre
1970    acknowledgment, acknowledgement
1975    theater, theatre
1980    scepter, sceptre
never   ameba, amoeba
never   glamor, glamour

There is a lot more variation than even that summary shows; please see the more detailed charts below, including some that go the other way by showing British usage. Each of these really is a separate case, and must be considered individually. There is no single, solitary, discrete, and agreed-upon thing called American spelling versus British spelling. There is a vast continuum of conflicting tendencies, some weaving back and forth time across the Atlantic, and across time. Even when one spelling “supersedes” another, it merely comes out ahead in the popularity contest. It usually does not wholly supplant the former spelling.

For the Ngramaniacs

In all cases, the putative “American” spelling is in blue, and the putative “British” spelling is in red. Notice how the answers are all over the board, and some rather surprising, too.

center vs centre

When did center supersede centre in American English? Answer: Around 1910. Ngram

theater vs theatre

When did theater supersede theatre in American English. Answer: During the late 1970s. Ngram

armor vs armour

When did armor supersede armour in American English? Answer: Around 1850. Ngram

glamor vs glamour

When did glamor supersede glamour in American English? Answer: Never, because it has always been a minority usage. Ngram

woolen vs woollen

When did woolen supersede woollen in American English? Answer: around 1905. Ngram

tire vs tyre

When did tire supersede tyre in American English? Answer: Never, because it was always dominant. Ngram

Well, and when did tyre supersede tire in British English? Answer: in the early 1940s. But it only lasted a couple of decades before falling back into minority usage again. Ngram

miter vs mitre

When did miter supersede mitre in American English? Answer: Around 1920. Then again around 1940. Then again around 1970. Ngram

acknowledgment vs acknowledgement

When did acknowledgment supersede acknowledgement in American English? Never. It has always been that way. Ngram

What about the other way around? When did acknowledgement supersede acknowledgment in British English? Answer: Around 1970. Ngram

scepter vs sceptre

When did scepter supersede sceptre in American English? Answer: Around 1980. Ngram

savior vs saviour

When did savior supersede saviour in American English? Answer: Around 1930. Ngram

deputize vs deputise

When did deputize supersede deputise in American English? Answer: Around 1810. Ngram

But what about the other way around? When did deputise supersede deputize in British English? It’s arguable, but the general answer is that it never did. Ngram

ameba vs amoeba

When did ameba supersede amoeba in American English? Answer: Never. Ngram

jewelry vs jewellery

When did jewelry supersede jewellery in American English? Answer: Around 1810. Ngram

inflection vs inflexion

When did inflection supersede inflexion in American English? Answer: It probably never did, because it inflection was probably always the dominant spelling of that word in American publications. Ngram

The data from before 1800 is not of sufficiently high quality to use for drawing conclusions from.

But what about the other way around? When did inflexion supersede inflection in British English? Answer: Mostly never.

Or, depending on the quality of the data, perhaps around 1805. But if so, it only did so for 7 years, up through around 1812. There was a minor and short-lived blip in the early 1920s when inflexion seems to have edged out inflection again in British English for a couple years tops, and then again between 1948–1962. Since then, the inflexion spelling has been on wane in British publication such that by 2000 the inflection spelling dominated the inflexion spelling by a factor of more than 5:1. Ngram

But what about the other way around? When did connexion supersede connection in British English? Answer: Around 1820. But it only did so for around 30 years, up through around 1850. Ngram

colored vs coloured

Since this one seems to be everybody’s favorite peeve, when did colored supersede coloured in American English? Answer: Around 1840. Ngram

leveled vs levelled

When did leveled supersede levelled in American English? Answer: Around 1915. Ngram

fetus vs foetus

When did fetus supersede foetus in American English? Answer: around 1910. Ngram

Hm, but what about the other way around? When did foetus supersede fetus in British English? It didn’t: it gave up the lead around 1970. Ngram

paralyzed vs paralysed

When did paralyzed supersede paralysed in American English? Answer: Always. ngram

And the other way around: when did paralysed supersede paralyzed in British English? Answer, around 1830, but it has been losing a lot of ground recently. Ngram

specter vs spectre

When did specter supersede spectre in American English? Answer: around 1940. Ngram

esophagus vs oesophagus

When did esophagus replace oesophagus in American English? Answer: Around 1910. Ngram

But what about British usage? The answer is that oesophagus seems to have lost to esophagus around 1980, but then may have returned. It’s hard to tell. Ngram

aluminum vs aluminium

When did aluminum supersede aluminium in American English? Answer: around 1900. Ngram

And what about the other way around? When did aluminium supersede aluminum in British English? Answer: around 1850, but it has lost a great deal of ground of late. Ngram

surprize vs surprise

It turns out that surprize was once the dominant form, not surprise, but this didn’t last even a hundred years. Ngram

Then again, here is the British Ngram for the same pair. Notice that even the Brits used the z for a good while, possibly even for longer than in North America:

Summary

I hope you can now see why I said what I said: that there can be no clear answer here. Everything is different. You have to look at each word-pair separately, and you should make sure you aren’t wrong about Britain, either.