Changes between registers can be very strange and subtle, even affecting the words we use.

Take the word, opaque, for example.

Growing up in elementary school, I learned that word and learned it well as, “opague.”  I remember clearly how the teacher tied it with the word, “vague,” to help us remember it.

Opague rhymed with vague and was the furthermost expression of the definition.  Vague meant visually indistinct or not clear, while  opague meant a material that blocks light completely, letting nothing through at all.

I have no idea where or when in my travels that changed for me.  It was long after I started exploring other registers as I was looking for physical changes rather than spoken or written ones.

The first time I heard it as o-pake’ I thought it was a dialect mispronunciation.  When I heard it a second time elsewhere, I looked it up in a local dictionary  to discover the change in sound and spelling.

Again, I found it fascinating to find a change in a single letter and that alerted me to look for other differences in words and language.

I have found many and will share them in future postings.