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I guess even if "espresso means not just ‘fast’ but ‘pressed out’", spelling it with an x still would be kind of natural in English. After all, "to express" (fr

I guess even if "espresso means not just ‘fast’ but ‘pressed out’", spelling it with an x still would be kind of natural in English. After all, "to express" (from Middle English expresse < Old French espresser, according to OED) can also mean "to press, squeeze, or wring out".

schoen 11y ago
You can also trace it back to Latin exprimo, exprimere, exprimi, expressus, which is why the linked article says that Italian (and implicitly also French) "corrupted the Latin root". (The Romance languages lost the /k/ in the consonant cluster in /ekspr/ → /espr/.) The complicated part is that even though we do have roots that preserve the x spelling and the /k/ pronunciation -- "express" and "expression" -- we don't have the Italian "-esso" (or Latin "-essus") ending, so when we use the "-esso" it seems we must be borrowing an Italian word, which it would probably be most natural to borrow with the Italian spelling and pronunciation, unless we want to say "a pressed coffee" or "a pressed-out coffee".
- Oletros 11y ago
  > (The Romance languages lost the /k/ in the consonant cluster in /ekspr/ → /espr/.) One of the Romance languages that didn't lost it is Spanish, expresar is pronunced /ekspresar/
  - schoen 11y ago
    Oh yeah, thanks for that counterexample! Portuguese has lost it in pronunciation but not spelling (unstressed ex → /iʃ/). (But I should be careful generalizing about some of these things because sometimes you have later scholarly borrowings from Latin, so you can have some words with the modified original root and then some words with the re-borrowed root, maybe with a different pronunciation.)
mdellabitta 11y ago
That raises the question: What would be the 'natural' English spelling of other Italian words, like 'pasta' or 'gnocchi'? Which highlights the slippery slope we're on here...

schoen 11y ago

You can also trace it back to Latin exprimo, exprimere, exprimi, expressus, which is why the linked article says that Italian (and implicitly also French) "corrupted the Latin root". (The Romance languages lost the /k/ in the consonant cluster in /ekspr/ → /espr/.) The complicated part is that even though we do have roots that preserve the x spelling and the /k/ pronunciation -- "express" and "expression" -- we don't have the Italian "-esso" (or Latin "-essus") ending, so when we use the "-esso" it seems we must be borrowing an Italian word, which it would probably be most natural to borrow with the Italian spelling and pronunciation, unless we want to say "a pressed coffee" or "a pressed-out coffee".

Oletros 11y ago
> (The Romance languages lost the /k/ in the consonant cluster in /ekspr/ → /espr/.) One of the Romance languages that didn't lost it is Spanish, expresar is pronunced /ekspresar/
- schoen 11y ago
  Oh yeah, thanks for that counterexample! Portuguese has lost it in pronunciation but not spelling (unstressed ex → /iʃ/). (But I should be careful generalizing about some of these things because sometimes you have later scholarly borrowings from Latin, so you can have some words with the modified original root and then some words with the re-borrowed root, maybe with a different pronunciation.)

mdellabitta 11y ago

That raises the question: What would be the 'natural' English spelling of other Italian words, like 'pasta' or 'gnocchi'? Which highlights the slippery slope we're on here...