Word of the Week! Hindrance Richmond Writing

Word of the Week! Hindrance Richmond Writing Or is it hinderance? I see both in print. Yet no usage guide helps here, including Garners Modern American Usage or the venerable text by Fowler. Nor do any of the printed dictionaries I have.   Everyone lists hindrance despite the drift in pronunciation. It should not surprise anyone who follows the history of language that any confusion about our word is only the latest chapter in a long history. This term has a simple enough meaning: something that hampers, hinders, or impedes. The OED reveals a variety of spellings: hynderance (16th Century); hinderaunce (15th-16th Centuries); hindraunce (no dates given); hinderance (17th Century on); hindrance (19th Century on). Here we have a word that has definitely lost its a and u but otherwise continues with two accepted spellings. What to do? I prefer hinderance, as it more closely approaches speech and the verb hinder, but hindrance remains more common in print and probably should be the one we use in service of higher grades in courses. MS Word wants to correct it to hindrance.   WordPress accepts both modern spellings. Yikes. Full disclosure: I am stumped. Students, check with your professors and please stick to ONE spelling. This will make for a diverting update eventually, as the case is not closed on hinderance hindrance. Please nominate a word (or metaphor!) useful in academic writing by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below. See all of our Words of the Week  here. Image Courtesy of  Wikipedia.