Pretty simple question, I think. Where does the "i" in "repair" go when spelling "reparable" or "irreparable" ? Is this just a "color"/"colour" type situation, or some deeper conspiracy?
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In a little word with five syllable, leaving out the 'i' helps the pronunciation so the word does not rhyme with wearable.– Yosef BaskinCommented Feb 28, 2017 at 21:21
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1The form irrepairable, from the English verb, was used 16c.-17c. but seldom was seen after. etymonline.com/index.php?term=irreparable– user66974Commented Feb 28, 2017 at 21:42
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3Related: Why drop the “i” in “explanation”?, Why is it spelled “maintenance” and not “maintainance?”, Why is the spelling of “pronounce” and “pronunciation” different?– herissonCommented Feb 28, 2017 at 21:57
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1 Answer
Both words were borrowed from Latin via French.
The Latin verb is reparare. In modern French, it is spelled réparer; in Old French, when it was borrowed by English, it was reparer. The English word is first attested in the 14th century. Early forms in English were repare, repayre, repeire, repeyre, and repaire, probably because those all sounded very similar, at least in some periods.
As to why English eventually chose repair as its standard form, I don't think we know; it just "happened".
The word irreparable was also borrowed from Latin (in-/irreparabilis), via French irreparable, the French word first attested in the 12th century, the English in the 16th. It was sometimes also spelled irreperable in English, which probably also sounded similar.
As to why the ai spelling never occurred, we don't know. Perhaps it was because it is a long vowel, which is less likely to occur in unstressed syllables like par in irreparable, as opposed to stressed pair in repair.
Another hypothesis (of mine) is that in English the verb was confused with and fused with English repair "retire", from Latin repatriare ("return to one's fatherland"), via French repairer, which is semantically close and phonetically very similar, if not identical. Another, common word that pressures one into this direction is pair.
answered Feb 28, 2017 at 22:05
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Related comment from a language-nerd friend of mine I just spoke with: "To repair in French is réparer. Irreparable is irréparable. Def borrowed from French, just without the accents"– elCrashCommented Feb 28, 2017 at 22:40
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I won't give this as an answer because I don't know if it's the answer, but if you check Wiktionary's etymology you will see that "repair" has two separate etymologies: one from French "reparer", as mentioned, with the meaning we're probably all thinking of, and one from French "repairer", this time with an <i>, with a meaning similar to "retreat". I find it quite plausible that due to the similar or identical pronunciation of these words in English, the spelling eventually merged.– LjLCommented Feb 28, 2017 at 23:14
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