Reader Graham Ennis recently wrote to query our use of humble pie and asks if it should be umble pie.
Anyone who admits to making a mistake has to eat humble pie and interestingly, the humble pie expression is itself the result of a mistake.
Numbles were originally the entrails of a deer. While the lord and lady dined on venison, further down the table the huntsmen were allowed to eat the numbles made into a pie.
So to eat a numble pie meant to come down to a lower level, where the huntsmen sit. Gradually, this was mistakenly pronounced as an ‘umble pie or humble pie, because of the similarity in meaning.
The nasal shift is to blame for other words changing too. When speaking quickly, a napron sounds like an apron. Its the same story with the only poisonous snake in Britain. An adder used to be called a nadder. Similarly, an umpire was a numpire, an orange was once a norange and an auger (the boring tool) was once a nauger.
Its a wonder weve got any words left starting with n. But it worked both ways – the letter n sometimes moved the other way. A newt was once an ewt. A nickname comes from an ekename. The word eke was Old English for also, and meant an also name.
I wish you all a happy and humble New Year!
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