Go to gaol. Go directly to gaol. Do not collect £200.

Question

I'm currently reading "Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason". This is written by an Ameriacn academic by the name of Jessica Warner (currently Professor of History at the University of Toronto). In it, she quotes from /The Country Journal; or, the Craftsman/ for 13th May
1738 "committed to the New Gaol (jail) in Southwark...".

Now I have no way of knowing (not having the original, cited article in front of me), but I'd be surprised if the original author had written "Gaol (jail)" as such; I'm guessing that the interpolation "(jail)" was intended for readers who might perhaps not be familiar with the word "gaol".
1) Can anyone with access to OED verify when "jail" started to supplant"gaol" in BrEnglish?
2) Anyone care to comment upon whether it's just in AmerEnglish that theword "gaol" might be unknown?
(The waters are further muddied by the appearance of the word "Goal" later in the quoted paragraph; whether that was a literal by the modern typesetter of the book, or was in the original article. However, I know which seems most likely to me:-)

Brian {Hamilton Kelly} (Email Removed) "I don't use Linux. I prefer to use an OS supported by a large multi- national vendor, with a good office suite, excellent network/internet software and decent hardware support."

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]1) Can anyone with access to OED verify when "jail" started to supplant "gaol" in BrEnglish?[/nq]
Both forms are mediaeval: "gaol" from Norman French, and "jail" from Old French.
[nq:1]2) Anyone care to comment upon whether it's just in AmerEnglish that the word "gaol" might be unknown?[/nq]
Probably. "Jail" is the only officially recognised AmE form - 'gaol' is "chiefly brit var" according to Webster's Third New International. (Which I always associate in my mind with Tatlin's "Monument to the Third International", for some reason.)

John Briggs

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]1) Can anyone with access to OED verify when "jail" started to supplant "gaol" in BrEnglish?[/nq]
Two broad variants: one from Norman French ('gaol' or 'gail' or many other variant spellings), and one from Central or Parisian French ('jail'). It's unclear when one superseded the other since the citations overlap.
[nq:1]2) Anyone care to comment upon whether it's just in AmerEnglish that the word "gaol" might be unknown?[/nq]
That would depend on the particular American reader involved.

Giles.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I'm currently reading "Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason". This is written by an Ameriacn academic by ... with the word "gaol". 1) Can anyone with access to OED verify when "jail" started to supplant "gaol" in BrEnglish?[/nq]
From the quotations cited in OED, "goal" seems to have occurred first in
1689 as a noun and 1622 as a verb.

"Jail" occurs first as a noun in 1623, as a verb in 1633.

For both words, earlier spelling variants also exist, going back to Middle English in both cases.
[nq:1]2) Anyone care to comment upon whether it's just in AmerEnglish that the word "gaol" might be unknown?[/nq]
Pass.
[nq:1](The waters are further muddied by the appearance of the word "Goal" later in the quoted paragraph; whether that was a literal by the modern typesetter of the book, or was in the original article. However, I know which seems most likely to me:-)[/nq]
Of this OED says "It is difficult to say whether for form /goal(e)/ common, alike in official and general use, from the 16th to the 18th c., was merely an erroneous spelling of /gaol/, after this had itself become an archaism, or was phonetic: cf mod.F /geole/." (NB in the last word the letter 'o' has a circumflex.)

Mike Stevens
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Me cogitare credo ergo me esse credo.
(Rainy-Day-Carts)

Usenet · Answer

not OED, but:
Source: The Collins English Dictionary © 2000 HarperCollins Publishers:

gaol (d?eil)
noun, verb (British)
a variant spelling of: jail
'gaoler noun
Source: The Collins English Dictionary © 2000 HarperCollins Publishers:

jail, gaol (d?eil)
noun

1 a place for the confinement of persons convicted and sentenced toimprisonment or of persons awaiting trial to whom bail is not granted verb

2 (transitive) to confine in prison(ETYMOLOGY: 13th Century: from Old French jaiole cage, from Vulgar Latin caveola (unattested), from Latin cavea enclosure; see cage: the two spellings derive from the forms of the word that developed in two different areas of France, and the spelling gaol represents a pronunciation in use until the 17th century)
'jailless, 'gaolless adjective
'jail-like, 'gaol-like adjective
jail - c.1275, gayhol, from O.N.Fr. gaiole and O.Fr. jaole, both meaning "a cage, prison," from M.L. gabiola, from L.L. caveola, dim. of L. cavea "cage." Both forms carried into M.E.; now pronounced "jail" however it is spelled. Norman-derived gaol (preferred in Britain) is "chiefly due to statutory and official tradition" (O.E.D.). The verb "to put in jail" is from 1604. Jailbird is 1603, an allusion to a caged bird. Jail-break "prison escape" is from 1910. Jail bait "girl under the legal age of consent" is attested from 1934. ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY

Go to gaol. Go directly to gaol. Do not collect £200.

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