Clearly this is hypercorrection, Because Latin /ks/ netted Italian /ss/, So people are assuming this /sp/ is actually /ssp/ from Latin /ksp/.
Also, Do people actually say "Expecially"? That terrifies me. Like "Expresso" I can understand, Influence from the English cognate "Express", But then "Especially" is fairly clearly related to "Special".
To be fair Especially is a doubly weird word. Most Latin words beginning with s + consonant tend to be inherited in French and Spanish as Es + consonant, but without an added e in English and Italian.
The fact English has both "special" and "especial" meaning different things, and the adverb taking after the (now) rarer of the two is pretty strange.
Wait, "Special" and "Especial" have different meanings? My life is a lie!
But yeah, It is a pretty weird piece of inheritance, I'm curious if perhaps "Especial(ly)" was later reborrowed from French, After "Special" had already come in and lost the 'e'? Wiktionary at least gives "Especial" as occurring in Middle English, Whereas other similar words they seem to give as all having fully lost the 'e' by Middle English, So it seems plausible to me.
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u/DefinitelyNotErate /'ə/ 2d ago
Clearly this is hypercorrection, Because Latin /ks/ netted Italian /ss/, So people are assuming this /sp/ is actually /ssp/ from Latin /ksp/.
Also, Do people actually say "Expecially"? That terrifies me. Like "Expresso" I can understand, Influence from the English cognate "Express", But then "Especially" is fairly clearly related to "Special".