In Algeo and Butcher, ch. 9, you'll see some further examples of this source of doublets in connection with the discussion of British vs. American English.
| Old stress | New stress |
| an'tique | 'antic |
| ca'det | 'caddie |
| Original form | Result of syncope |
| Augustine | Austin |
| Benedict | Benet |
| courtesy | curtsey |
| fantasy (cf. fantasia) | fancy |
| frenetic | frantic |
| paralysis | palsy |
We can see the two processes at work in frantic and palsy. First must have come stress shift in frenetic and paralysis, leaving formerly stressed medial vowels vulnerable to syncope.
We also see both processes at work in Chaucer's poetry, where there is
variation between old mar-ri-'age vs. new 'mar-r(i)age.
Aphesis
Aphesis refers to the loss of unstressed initial syllables. The
term apheresis is also sometimes used for this process.
| Full form | Result of aphesis |
| adown | down |
| adub | dub |
| apprentice | prentice |
| attention | 'tention! |
| defense | fence |
| esquire | squire |
Sometimes, forms with metanalysis survive as dialect or nonstandard forms, possibly with their own OED entry.
In some cases, metanalysis is attested in the historical record, but did not catch on.
The above cases all arise on the basis of misanalyzing spoken language.
With the rise of literacy, such cases have been superseded by ones based
on misreading. There's even a special humorous word misles for
such cases. Here's a list of misles.
Question: Based on the linguistic evidence, what would you guess
was the size of the ancestor of the entire family of bowed string
instruments?
Question: What are the demonyms for the following places?
Followup question: And why?
Musical cousins (and some orphans)
Demonyms
A demonym, according to the OED, is the "name by which a native or
resident of a specific place is known".
Legalese