Stansted Inn
One of the greatest mistakes I have seen almost daily since working at Stansted Inn, is the common misspelling of Stansted.
There are in fact, many places where adding the “a” in Stansted to form “Stanstead” is applicable.
In Quebec , there is a town named Stanstead, which was established in 1796 by Johnson Taplin, hence far predating the London Airport.
The little village of Stanstead Abbots in East Hertfordshire, England, dates back to the 11th century. Although when first seen in the Doomsday book of 1066, the village was recorded as “Stanstede”. The “Abbotts” suffix appeared around the 14th century.
A further small village in Suffolk is also named Stanstead. This village too predates the Aiport by several hundred years.
How then is it that despite being surrounded by “Stanstead’s” the Airport is spelt “Stansted”? Is it the natural development of spelling whereby the original “Stanstede” became “Stanstead”? Is “Stansted” the next step in this written evolution? I have often wondered whether this progression of language is as “natural” as one would like to think. When did “ye olde” become “the old”? Why were people so keen on adding unnecessary “e’s” at the end of their words? Who is it that decided that words should have set spellings? I’m sure that when researching during my degree, I came across many an early modern letter where the same word was spelt differently when repeated in the same letter written by the same person. Hence implying spelling was based purely on phonetics. I remember being horrified at school when my chemistry teacher announced we need no longer spell sulphuric acid with “ph” and it could now be replaced with an “f”. Look it up on google. The “ph” version appears first in the pre-emptive search box, but the first response is the Wikipedia article entitled “Sulfuric Acid”. Are we dumbing down our language? Will we one day write “insted” as the correct spelling of “instead”. What affect will regional dialects have on this progression towards writing phonetically?
I do not however, believe that the other villages and towns influence the general public in their misspelling of Stanstead. Nor that they are ignorant of the changing of language. Rather I believe it stems from the known spelling of “stead” and “instead”. These more often seen words, pronounced in much the same way as Stansted, contribute strongly towards guessed spellings. When confronted with an unknown word, when attempting to spell it, it is natural to refer to known spellings of the same pronunciation. Although often wrong, it is and always has been an integral part of human nature, when dealing with unknown, to relate it or compare it directly to the known, whether consciously or not. Have you never thought to yourself that the stranger you have only just met and are chatting happily away to reminds you of so and so from such a place…?
And so I have tried to explain, more for my own interest than anyone else, the common misspelling of Stanstead by my guests. I still have no decisive answer. But rather than looking down in amused exasperation that another guest has written “Stanstead”, I should try to associate it with “sulphuric” acid…which is as comforting when seen spelt with “ph” as it is disturbing when spelt with “f”.