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From: lambert@boring.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: The word "won't".
Message-ID: <6554@boring.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Aug-85 11:17:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: boring.6554
Posted: Mon Aug  5 11:17:41 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 00:37:39 EDT
References: <565@rtech.UUCP> <1216@sjuvax.UUCP> <430@spar.UUCP>
Reply-To: lambert@boring.UUCP (Lambert Meertens)
Distribution: net
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
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Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax.LOCAL

>>> Does anyone know how the contraction for "will not" came to be "won't"?
>>> "Willn't" seems more logical. --  Jeff Lichtman 
>
>    [...]
>    Therefore I offer some more idle speculation and handwaving of the most
>    dubious sort.
>    
>    According to some old texts by Wright and Sweet, Middle English also had
>    alternate unaccented forms with -o-, which apparently resulted from the
>    labial influence of the preceding w- on the weak vowel. Eventually the -o-
>    form spread to accented contexts as well.
>
>    At a later point, the variation between wil/wol became fixed so that the
>    -o- appeared only in the negative, which approached the modern form thru
>    the phonetic steps below:
>
>	          	wolnt => wowlnt => wownt
>
>    -- Michael Ellis

According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, there once was an
intermediate form "wonnot", so the "l" was assimilated (rather than
dropped) before the contraction took place.
-- 

     Lambert Meertens
     ...!{seismo,okstate,garfield,decvax,philabs}!lambert@mcvax.UUCP
     CWI (Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science), Amsterdam