32

Checking how adjectives related to time are created, I see:

  • year → yearly
  • month → monthly
  • week → weekly
  • day → daily

Why has “day” been derived into “daily” with an ‘i’ instead of “dayly” with a ‘y’?

In the Online Etymology Dictionary I don't see information related to this ‘loss’ of the ‘y’ in favour of the ‘i’:

daily (adj.)

Old English dæglic (see day). This form is known from compounds: twadæglic “happening once in two days,” þreodæglic “happening once in three days;” the more usual Old English word was dæghwamlic, also dægehwelc. Cognate with German täglich.

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    Just an observation: this is not uncommon for forms of words ending in "y". Ready -> readily, gay -> gaily, etc. I guess coyly is a counterexample, but perhaps that is because coily seems as if it might mean "like a coil". :) Apr 15, 2014 at 8:27
  • nice question :)
    – mavis
    Apr 15, 2014 at 12:30
  • 1
    @aps In school (English as foreign language) I learned a rule that y becomes i upon adding a suffix, with the exception of vowel + y. Interestingly enough, we never discussed this exception of the exception.
    – Yogu
    Apr 15, 2014 at 19:04
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    @aps coyly is not a counterexample to a more specific rule: "ay" -> "ai". Are there any examples for "oy" -> "oi"?
    – Kaz
    Apr 16, 2014 at 0:49
  • @Tyler James Young thanks for the edit that makes the question look quite better :)
    – fedorqui
    Apr 16, 2014 at 8:40

3 Answers 3

33

From the quoted definitions at etymonline, I would suspect that you may be asking the wrong question :)

If I look at the related words in other languages (dag, Tag) for day, it seems the final g has changed into a [j]. The same seems to have happened with (Dutch) leggen -> English lay.

As it is normally pronunciation that defines spelling, and not the other way around, it seems that the i did the job of representing that [j] in daily quite well. However, as a final vowel, the i seems to be uncommon in English, and usually written as a y. (Compare Dutch hooi to English hay).

So where dæglic became daily (the final [k] became [i]), dæg became day. In both cases the g got to be pronounced as [j], but instead of dai, hai or gai, the use of y was preferred to write that sound in a final position.

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    A much better explanation than mine. +1 Apr 15, 2014 at 8:49
  • And wegen -> weigh, and weg -> way, mag -> may, zeg -> say, and so on. Sometimes looking at English from Dutch makes some sort of sense! And then you remember all the vocabulary from all the other languages it pillaged :-) Apr 15, 2014 at 20:27
  • 2
    If I get it correctly, daily comes directly from an original word meaning exactly this. My supposition was that it is a derivative from day, hence the confusion of "why the y became i". That is a nice explanation!
    – fedorqui
    Apr 15, 2014 at 22:46
14

Since I was getting a bit caught up in trying to write out some fairly complex things in comments to @medica’s answer, I am going to write it all out in a full answer here.

Basically, there is a more or less regular variation in some words between final -y and non-final -i- (sometimes -ie) in English orthography. That means that when adding various suffixes to words that end in -y, you have to know whether to change it to an -i- or not, based on a certain set of rules (plus some exceptions—this is English after all). The rules for when to choose what are as follows:

Phonetic quality of -y

The first thing to determine is how the -y is pronounced. There are three possibilities here:

  • /i/, as in ‘ready’, ‘silly’, etc.
  • /ai/, as in ‘sly’, ‘shy’, ‘apply’, etc.
  • /j/, as in ‘day’, ‘whey’, ‘coy’, ‘buoy’, etc.

Regardless of what suffix you’re adding, these different pronunciations affect when the spelling does and does not change.

Phonetic makeup of suffixes

In addition, the pronunciation of the suffix that you add to the end of the word also makes a difference, or rather, the start of the suffix does. Here there are four possible variations:

  • Suffix consists only of one consonant (noun-plural -(e)s, verbal third singular present -(e)s, past -(e)d, strong verb passive participle -(e)n)
  • Suffix starts with a consonant (-ness, -ful, -less, -some, etc.)
  • Suffix starts with the vowel /i/ (-ing, -ish, -ive, -ify, etc.)
  • Suffix starts with any other vowel (-er, -est, -en, -able, etc.)

Combining -y and suffix

When you combine a final -y with a suffix, you have to look at each combination of the seven options mentioned above separately (though some of them can be lumped together, of course).

In the following, I will simply write the -y as its phonetic realisation (/i/, /ai/, or /j/), and as a shorthand, I’ll write the suffixes as simply X (only one consonant), C (consonant-initial), I (starts with /i/), and V (starts with any other vowel). If a rule goes for all types of -y or suffixes, I write ANY. (If two types go together, I just write them together; so CV means ‘suffix that starts with a consonant or a vowel that isn’t /i/’, for instance, and /i ai/ means -y pronounced either as /i/ or as /ai/.)

Exceptions to the main rules are in bold.

(‘Daily’ is in the very last section.)

ANY + I-y-

Before a suffix that starts in /i/, -y never changes—it always remains -y-, no matter how it’s pronounced. (Even words that end in -ie change this to -y- here, such as diedying, or lielying.)

  • busybusying
    saysaying
    shyshying
    clayclayish
    drydryish

 

/i ai/ + X-ie-

Before a suffix consisting of only one consonant, -y pronounced /i/ or /ai/ is written -ie-

  • busybusied, busies
    drydries, dried

 

/i/ + CV-i-

Before a suffix starting in a consonant or a non-/i/ vowel, -y pronounced /i/ changes to -i-. (This does not happen in the rare instance where the -y pronounced /i/ follows a vowel sound; so gooeygooeyness, rather than *gooiness or *gooeiness.)

  • busybusiness, busier, busily
    studystudier, ?studiable
    veryverily

 

/ai/ + CV-y- (sometimes also -i-)

Before a suffix starting in a consonant or non-/i/ vowel, -y pronounced /ai/ generally remains in monosyllabics, though there are some individual exceptions where a variant spelling with -i- also exists. In polysyllabic words, -i- is the rule.

  • shyshyly (shily), shyer (shier), shyest (shiest), shyness (shiness) (forms with -i- all rare)
    crycryer/crier, ?cryable
    drydryly/drily, dryable/driable, dryness
    applyappliance, (?)applier
    relyreliant, reliance

 

/j/ + X-y- (sometimes -i-)

Before a suffix consisting of only one consonant, -y pronounced /j/ generally remains. After such a y, the past and past participle suffix is -ed (with the e), but the present suffix is -s with no e. In the past and past participle forms of some irregular verbs, the y changes to -i-, and the suffix, whether -(e)d or -(e)n, never has an e.

  • daydays
    playplays, played
    slay(?)slayed, slain
    laylays, laid, lain
    toytoys, toyed

 

/j/ + V-y-

Before a suffix starting in a vowel, -y pronounced /j/ usually remains. Only one exception that I can think of, highlighted below.

  • greygreyer, greyest, ?greyable
    coycoyer, coyest
    buybuyer, buyable
    gaygayer, gayety/gaiety

 

/j/ + C-y- or -i-

Before a suffix starting in a consonant, the basic rule seems to be that -y remains; but there are some exceptions where it changes to -i-, one of which is the word asked about in the question: daily. Sadly, these exceptions seem completely random and must be learnt by heart.

  • coycoyly, coyness
    grey(?)greyly, greyness
    gaygaily, gayness
    daydaily, ?dayful
    array [in the sense ‘beautiful clothes’] ⟹ raiment (from earlier (ar)rayment)
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    +1 for this great set of rules, but I love the irony that after all the rules, the actual word in question is an exception :D
    – oerkelens
    May 7, 2014 at 22:42
  • There's also the situation that although -Vy is normally invariant (archways, delays, alloys, buoys, corduroys, outbuys, alleys, chimneys, coneys, honeys, monkeys) unless it's -quy, the irregular monies from money can also be found.
    – tchrist
    Apr 21, 2015 at 15:37
  • @tchrist I’m not sure I’d call that ‘irregular’ as such. There’s a lot of variation with -ey, though it is true that the variation itself extremely random. You have monies, fogies, stories (from storey), etc., as alternative forms (though the forms in -eys also exist); but only (or at least mostly) honeys and bogeys, for example. And even the ones that are not sanctioned in their -ies forms are quite commonly found spelt like that anyway: chimnies gives about 75,000 Google hits, and monkies gives nearly half a million. Apr 21, 2015 at 15:57
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I believe this comes from established patterns in spelling. If a word ends in a consonant, you could add -ly. (Nightly, hourly, promptly, quickly, etc.)

If a word ends a consonant + y, one changes the y to i and adds the ending (-ly, -ness, etc.)

Ready -> readi +ly/ness. Greedy -> greedi +ly/ness. Happy -> happi + ly/ness.

When y is preceded by a vowel (or h), it keeps the y. Coy -> coyly/coyness, shy -> shyly/shyness.

There are exceptions, (day -> dai + ly) but this should be a good guide (I hope).

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    This works as a basic rule of thumb, but with exceptions—one of which, notably, is day/daily (the y is preceded by a consonant). A more accurate way of phrasing the rule: when ‹y› is a vowel /i/, -y => -i-. When it is a vowel /ai/, no change. When it is a glide /j/, there is no rule—you have to learn the words by heart. ‘Day’ and ‘gay’ change to ‘d/gai-’, but ‘gray’ and ‘coy’ do not change. Apr 15, 2014 at 9:28
  • Consider also play -> playing & played, pay -> paying & paid but say -> saying & said (with change in pronunciation in received pronunciation but not all dialects). If it is acting like a consonant (with -ing) or would double the -i- it has to end up -y-. If it is acting as part of a diphthong (with -ed) it is quite likely not to change from -i- to -y- but there are examples both ways. Historically some -ed words are pronounced with an extra syllable, especially as gerunds/nouns, though this is rare today. I don't know if this is a factor here. Apr 15, 2014 at 15:19
  • Also consider the word "slyly", which keeps the "y" despite being preceded by a consonant. Obviously "slily" would have a pronunciation change, which I think is the bigger issue at play here.
    – Cat
    Apr 15, 2014 at 17:23
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    Issue with answer: day is not an example of a word ending in a consonant + y.
    – Kaz
    Apr 16, 2014 at 1:12
  • @Eric, ‘slyly’ is not irregular in the version I gave in a comment above; and there is no reason why ‘slily’ should have to be pronounced differently. Apr 16, 2014 at 6:58

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