Names and pronunciation, well, many people have confusion and question upon why Hank is short for name henry? Why Colonel is pronounced as Kernel and why we say Stat when we want something to be done quickly. Today we’ll answer these 3 questions. So, fasten your seat belts and let’s get started.
Why “Hank” is short for “Henry”
The reason why we call Hank short for Henry is because of a popular suffix, i.e., “kin”, which also shows how Jack is originally derived from John. Particularly, the suffix “kin” means little. So Robin Hood’s Little John would have been named Jockin, which later gave rise to names like Jenkin, then Jakin, and then Jack, and these all were just literally meaning Little John.
In a similar way, Little Henry became Henkin, which gave rise to the name Hankin, which people just shortened to “Hank”.
Why “Colonel” is pronounced “Kernel”
Colonel drives from a Latin world columna, which means pillar. This gave rise to an Old Italian word Compagna colonnella, which meant little-column. And this word, in return, gave rise to a rank of colonnello, which meant the leader of a column.
Other countries also adopted this ranking using the Coronel word. This was pronounced pretty much the same way it looks, then later English started pronouncing it as Kernel, but they use the same spelling.
However, in the 1540s, the French changed the spelling Coronel back to Colonel. And within a few years, the English also followed the same thing, and by the 17th century, Colonel was the most common way to spell the word in the English language. But the pronunciation was mixed between the new Colonel and older Kernel. And in the end, most people started to pronounce Colonel as Kernel.
Why we use Stat word when we want something to be done quickly
This may seem pretty odd at first glance. After all, the most common usage of Stat is referring to Statistics. But in this case, the Stat word is not the short form for Statistics, but rather is derived from a Latin word Statim, which meant immediately.
The first instance of shortening the word Statim to Stat is known to be by the physicians in the 19th century. The first documented instance of this appeared in W.H. Griffith’s Lesson on Prescriptions, 1875.
