Middle English -(e)len, Old English -lian:-Old Germanic type -ilôjan, with a frequentative or sometimes a diminutive sense. So while it notes the mizzled/ misled connection, the OED believes that the origin of mizzle in the ‘confuse’ sense is ‘probably a frequentative formation’ incorporating the –le suffix, of which it says:
The OED’s first citation, from 1583, has more of an ‘intoxicated’ sense (‘mizzeled with wine’), while its second, from 1599 (‘Though he be mump, misled, blind…’), ‘could perhaps alternatively be interpreted as showing misled’. It shows variable spelling, appearing as misle, mizzel (both 16thC), mizel (17thC), and mizzle (19thC). In the sense ‘confuse, muddle, mystify’, it goes back several centuries, and its origin is uncertain. Mizzle as a verb has a few meanings, including ‘drizzle’, ‘complain’, and ‘leave suddenly or vanish’. Could it have come from misled, past participle of mislead? Late-morning mist, or mizzle, on Knockma Hill in County GalwayĪdding to the intrigue is the verb mizzle. It may even have been years, if that’s not hyper-bowl hyperbole.ĭifferent pronunciations of a word form may be standard in different contexts: The chances of being mizzled are higher when the word is rare but can be reanalysed in a familiar way: sidereal as ‘side real’ instead of /saɪˈdɪrɪəl/ (four syllables, stress on ‘dee’) epitome as ‘EPI-tome’ instead of ‘eh-PIT-o-me’.Īs a child, I said Penelope as /ˈpenəloːp/ ‘PEN-elope’ – usually silently, while reading, which is why it took months for the truth to dawn. The confusion may be momentary or prolonged. Misles are more like an early stage in rebracketing, where affixes and compounds create ambiguous morphology: coworker, deicer, mishit, redrawing, sundried, titleist, unshed. They’re not like expresso for espresso, where the variant pronunciation corresponds to a different spelling that’s produced or assumed. Misles are a subset of mispronunciations. Oh, it’s a bio-pic, not a bi-opic! I’ve been mis-led, not mizzled! Some linguists and language enthusiasts call these troublesome words misles, back-formed from misled, which is perhaps the prototypical misle. There are words we know, or think we know, but: (1) we probably got to know them in print before hearing them spoken, and (2) their spelling is ambiguous or misleading in a way that leads us to ‘hear’ them differently – perhaps incorrectly – in our mind’s ear.Įventually there’s a lightbulb moment. The first time you saw the word biopic, did you pronounce it ‘bi-OPic’, to rhyme with myopic, either aloud or in your head, before learning that it’s ‘bio-pic’, as in biographical picture? If so, you were well and truly mizzled.
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