CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

So, today at our college Christmas in the Park concert, we noticed that the program bore the words, "The First Nowell". Now at first we thought our SGA made a horrible error as we know it's spelled 'Noel'. But when they were putting the lyrics on the overhead, it was still spelled'Nowell' and we were highly confused! Could they possibly have made another grammatical error? Then Joe tells us that it's the British way to spell 'Noel' and that they were singing the British version of the song (which sounds no different from the American version). So, to all our friends in the UK, is that true? Or do I need to go beat Joe for lying to us? XD How do you spell Noel?

I shall go ask Skynes the next time I see him on IM. (As he lives in the UK)

It's spelt Noel, with two dots over the 'e'. There's no difference between the American and British spelling.

I did a search on "www.dictionary.com" just then. No results for "Nowell". For "Noel" though, I found this:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=No%C3%ABl

Go bash Joe! J/K

dictionary.com is American. But even searching with British Dictionaries gives nothing.

Im british and I say Joes mistaken.

I'm not sure where it comes from, but it is an accepted alternate spelling also found in some songbooks. I've only done choir for a bajillion years, so I've seen it before. It's a lot less common than "Noel," though, and I definitely laughed my head off the first time I saw it.

As far as I can tell from looking it up, the original spelling in that particular carol was "Nowell", which is a corruption of the French word. They're just using the carol as it was originally written.

Don't beat Joe.

Aka-chan wrote:I'm not sure where it comes from, but it is an accepted alternate spelling also found in some songbooks. I've only done choir for a bajillion years, so I've seen it before. It's a lot less common than "Noel," though, and I definitely laughed my head off the first time I saw it.

I'd say it's about accepted as "tonite" is as a spelling of "tonight".

I've always learned it as "noel", not any other way.

According to Webster's New World Dictionary Third College Edition the Old French
spelling actually IS Nowel with one 'l' not two.The alternate Old French spelling is
nouel,so don't kill Joe,I agree with Q,he seems to be trying to use the original spelling.