Authour Vs Author, Which Context Should Each One Be Used On?

As we know it, the English language has multiple words that we typically use in our day-to-day lives. The evolution of the language, on the other hand, has made some words obsolete with the passage of time. In this article, we will present two of those words and how the evolution of language converted one of those words into an obsolete spelling.

An author is a person that creates something; you can consider the person an architect written word. That includes books, essays, and many more. The word authour is the obsolete spelling of the word author. According to the spelling of the word, author is what people understand the term to be.

Definitions Of Both Terms

We can define the word author as someone that creates something. A person that is considered the originator of any written work is what we know as an author. Books, plays, essays, articles, and many more are considered written works.

We can conclude that the term author is mainly used to refer to written works, but that does not limit its usage. Suppose we want to be broader with the definition. In that case, an author is “the person who originated or gave existence to anything.”

Other definitions of the term or word author are the following:

• An author is a person that can create something or begin something.
• We consider an author someone whose main job is to write any written works, like books, papers, journals, and many more.
• The creator of something, for example, a software code, is also considered an author.
• Someone that establishes a theory or creates a plan is also considered an author.

The definition of the word authour, on the other hand, can be explained in two ways:

The simple way or explanation of the term “authour” is the following: it is the obsolete way of spelling the previous word we explained, “author.”

Getting into the more complex definition of the word, we can establish two main lines of thinking:

1. Most countries with English as their primary language have no use for the spelling “authour.”
2. The influence in the world from American culture has made the spelling “authour” useless. All the meaningful usage of the term is under the American spelling “author.”

But the takeaway from this is that the term “authour” means the same as the term “Author.” The first one is just a victim of the evolution of the English language, and it’s not the only word with a similar fate.

Origin And Evolution Of The Words

This section will explain the origin of the terms “authour” and “author.” We will explain how the English language evolves and leaves behind words, phrases, and spellings not acceptable in the modern way of expressing the language.

The English language has its origins in Anglo-Frisian dialects; this came with the emigration of Anglo-Saxons from multiple places like modern northwest Germany, southern Denmark, and the Netherlands and continues with many more changes throughout centuries.

In 1066 when the Norman conquest concluded, the situation led to a change in the base of the language from Anglo-Saxon to Anglo-Norman. This began the Early Middle English era.

During the “Early Middle English” era, the Normans (ancient French) had the most influential power over the Anglo language. At this point, the spelling of words began to change, reflecting the Norman (ancient French) language.

Because Norman French was a language influenced by the Old Norse, from the Vikings that invaded France, the Norman language significantly influenced the Anglo-Norman evolution. Many words went directly to the Anglo-Norman language that is still in use today.

This history is vital to understand the origin of the word author. The etymology of the word author comes from the ancient French “auctor,” and this from the Latin term “auctorem” which means founder.

The origin or change from “Authour” to “Author” does not have concrete evidence to state the difference in spelling.

The era known as “Early Middle English” is where we can find evidence of similar changes in other words that could explain the difference in the spelling.

We can find the origins of the word from the ancient french “auctur” that eventually changed to the word “autor.” The words from ancient french then became part of the middle English “auctour” that changed later on to “autor.”

As we can see, the transformation of the word is similar to that of the word “authour” to the new and current spelling “author.”

Synonyms

Every language has different ways of saying the same thing. Words or phrases that have the same or similar meaning as others. This section will present other words and phrases that hold identical meanings as the term author.

• A biographer is someone that writes a biography, the author of a memoir.
• A columnist is someone that corresponds to or is the editor of a newspaper or magazine column.
• A composer is a person that creates something or composes, like the author of a song.
• A creator is someone that can make something.
• A journalist is a person that works in a newspaper or news platform and practices the profession of journalism. A journalist is the author of the reported news.
• Poet is someone who creates poetry. A poet is the author of poetry.
• A writer is a person who practices writing as an occupation and makes multiple styles of written work.

Antonyms

Just as it is common to hear words that essentially mean the same thing, some words have the opposite meaning to another. The name for this is an antonym. Next, we will present a list of words that mean the opposite of the term author.

• Annihilator is someone that does the opposite of creation, is someone that destroys.
• An imitator is a person that does not create original content but imitates others.
• The emulator takes something created by someone else and tries to make it his own.

Examples Of Both Terms

This section will present multiple sentences that will serve as examples using the term we use and accept as “author.”

• The author of my favorite book is from Colombia.
• The author said that he spent ten years investigating to establish his theory.
• The App code author was very good at coding.
• He is a very talented young author.
• We can say that God is the author of everything.
• The author of the report was very worried about what he was able to find.
• He is the author of the German book that we use in our classes.
• The author of that trilogy is always in the best-selling charts.
• The company’s recent performance has one author.
• Michael is the author of multiple, very well-received children’s books.

Conclusion

As we can conclude, the English language has many words that you can use in many ways.

Multiple words have changed throughout the centuries due to the changes in the language. That is what happened to the word “authour,” which is now commonly known as the term “author”.

The take-home of this article is to educate that the word “Authour” is not misspelled because it is an actual word. In time, the term “authour” merely evolved into the word author, but the word’s meaning remained the same.