Excrescence

#linguistics Published: 2021-11-15

In my past post on frequentative, I wrote that the word “gamble” was origninally a frequentative form of “game” (“game” + “le”), but I didn’t mention what “-b-“ exactly is. These consonants inserted by the influence of euphony is generally called “excrescence”¹, and there are some other similar examples.

All of these changes are related to nasal consonants (/m/, /n/ (or /ŋ/)).

ml -> mbl

Examples of this sound change, other than gamble, include the word “tremble”. In Middle English, it was actually spelled “tremle”.

n -> nd

“Thunder” was spelled “thoner” or something like this in Middle English.

g -> ng

There are many examples of an intrusive n before g:

• messanger <- messager
• passanger <- passager
• scavenger <- scaveger
• nightingale <- nightgale

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epenthesis#Excrescence