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The idea behind this page is to share interesting stories about where certains English words come from. It will be updated weekly with the word origin of the week.
word origin of the week: sulphur or sulfur?
The standard British spelling in ordinary contexts is sulphur and in the US it is sulfur. However, internationally, chemists recognise sulfur as their standard spelling when used specifically in chemistry (including sulfate, sulfide, sulfuric and sulfurous).
In other scientific contexts (outside the field of chemistry) the British spelling remains sulphur (US sulfur) and its derivatives, such as sulphur dioxide. Curiously, there was no constant spelling of the word in Latin, which is found as sulphur, sulpur and sulfur. In medival French it was spelt sulfre and in Middle English it was spelt soufre. The variant sulphur entered use around the 1300s and was the only choice featuring in Johnson's dictionary in 1755, from where the preferred British spelling arose. The choice of sulfur in the US is a result of spelling reforms introduced by Noah Webster.
clink
Clink is the word for the sound that that metal and glass make when they strike another similar or hard surface and is thought to come from the Middle Dutch word klinken. The slang meaning "prison" supposedly dates from the 1500s and was the nickname for a particular prison in London. The origin of this second meaning of clink is also thought to date back as far as the 1400s and associated with slave trade and the sound of chains. It is believed to come from prisons where prisoners were not permitted to speak, so the predominant sound heard in these buildings were the clinking of chains.