this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
537 points (96.7% liked)
Mildly Interesting
16916 readers
26 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yep all 3 are valid, matte is the new variant. https://www.etymonline.com/word/matte#etymonline_v_9722
And I’ve seen all 3 in use in the USA. It’s not matte = Canada. I’ve seen matte more than mat which is historically the spelling. The oed doesn’t list matt as the proper spelling but who knows with the brits.
Chamber's dictionary has it as "Mat, or Matt, or matte" stating that it comes from the French "mat" or the German "matt", so fuck knows where matte comes from!
The American spelling "matte" probably comes from the spelling "mate" derived from French "mate", and doubling the "t" to differentiate it from "mate". The British spelling "matt" was probably primarily influenced by the German word "Matt" considering the UK tended to have more German influence.
Alternatively, either (or both) may be an etymological spelling from Latin "mattus" (which means "drunk" but likely became a word for "pale" in French).
While I am a linguist, I only deduced this from a bit of Googling and a lot of speculating, so don't take my word for it...
Probably my Stavanger-dialect in Norway. It's matt in Norwegian, but matte in my dialect.