“Guerilla” is needlessly rebellious

August 25th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

As an afterthought, Webster’s says it’s OK to spell “guerrilla” with one “r,” but you won’t find it that way very often, and with good reason.

Most words carry clues to their history in their spelling. “Guerrilla” is a diminutive of the Spanish “guerra,” meaning “war.” It was introduced to English during the Napoleonic Wars, specifically the campaign fought on the Iberian Peninsula (which Spain and Portugal share).

Earlier ancestors are the Italian “guerra” and the French “guerre,” both of which evolved from the Frankish base “werra,” meaning “confusion, strife” — the origin of “war.”

In Spanish, “guerrilla” means literally “a small war” or “a band of men who fight such a war.” In English, a guerrilla is any member of such a band. As an adjective, it can describe any activity characteristic of such combatants: for example, those that are “undercover, clandestine, etc., or radical, subversive, etc.”

Anyway, don’t spell “guerrilla” with one “r,” unless you have a clearly subversive reason for doing so.

Entry Filed under: spelling, word origins