An <excellent> question

Antonio’s question:

“So why is the <l> always doubled in the spelling of <excellent>?”

An <excellent> Question

And my initial response:

Antonio’s excellent question caught me just a little off guard. While the spelling of <excellent> is perfectly regular according to British spelling, it did not comply with the American pattern.

Our initial analysis went a little like this:

We assumed that the base element was <excel> and we applied the 3 questions needed to be asked of a base or stem when considering doubling before adding a vowel suffix. According to the American spelling pattern, the spelling of <excel> + <ent> should be <*’excelent> because the stress falls on the first syllable, not the one immediately before the suffix.

This had me intrigued, but before considering the spelling of <excellent> an exception, I thought it more prudent to reconsider two aspects of my initial hypothesis.
1) I had made an assumption that the base element was <excel>.
What if this was not the case?
2) I had also assumed that the stress pattern for <excellent> was a given. What if it had not always been on the first syllable?

The Three Questions:

1. Is the final letter of the base or stem a single consonant?

2. Is there just one vowel letter immediately before that consonant?

3. Is the stress on the syllable immediately before the suffix in the finished word?

Download the Big Suffix Checker for all the English suffixing patterns.

You can learn more about the doubling conventions in the following themes from the Real Spelling Toolbox.

Etymology:

excellent: Origin: 1350–1400; ME from L. excellent- (s. of excellēns), prp. of excellere

excellently

excellence: Origin: 1350–1400; ME from MF from L excellentia

excellency

excel: Origin: 1400–50; late ME excellen from L excellere, equiv. to ex- + -cellere to rise high, tower (akin to celsus high)

excels, excelled, excelling

The Situation

At a recent dinner party a group of us were discussing the doubling conventions in English spelling and in particular the anomaly between the English and American spellings of words that end in the letter <l>. British spelling doubles the <l> regardless, whereas American spelling continues to apply the condition that if the stress falls on any syllable except the one immediately before the suffix, doubling of the final consonant does not occur. Hence <traveling>, <marvelous> etc. I was explaining that this is a convention that holds true for all words when one of the group asked:

What was needed was ...

...a more detailed analysis:

John Ayto explains in his ‘Dictionary of Word Origins’ :

The underlying notion of excellent is of physically ‘rising above’ others. It comes via Old French from the present participle of Latin excell(ere).
This was a compound verb formed from the prefix ex- ‘out’ and a hypothetical verbal element *cellere, which evidently meant something like ‘rise up, be high’.

The English form of the word came into use in the 14th century and so the base element for the word would have been <excell> not <excel>. So how did the spelling <excel> come about?

Historically the verb <excel> is a back formation that came into use after <excellent> in the 15th century. I initially hypothesized that an assumption might have been made based on other spelling conventions at the time, that the <l> had been doubled before the adding of the suffix <-ent>. But a quick email to Melvyn Ramsden offered a better explanation.

“... if you look at Early Modern English poetry, and the iambic pentameter rhythm of Shakespeare, it becomes clear that the stress was then on the second syllable of <excellent> and its fellow derivatives. The first syllable stress is, then, a comparatively recent development.

I also note that in the Shakespeare folios, and the original editions of the Authorized Version of the Bible, the verb was spelled <excell>. Though Dr Johnson only has <excell>, my Oxford of 1933 gives <excel> and <excell> as alternatives.“

Which just goes to prove that there is a reason for every spelling in English; you just need to know where to look or who to ask to determine what it is.

This has been an most excellent little study!