"Historical linguistics is not just guesswork." ... Sure it is. It may be very good guesswork but until yu can come with a recording with that wayback masheen ... then it's guesswork (speculation) built upon assumptions that may or may not be true ... for byspel:

" But we have (I think) no evidence that this happened in the middle ages, when people spelled how they pronounced, and not the other way around. All the examples of Norman influenced spelling change I am aware of did not change the pronunciation."

That's a mighty bold assumption to say that no one gave into their teacher's pedantic rant on how to spell words and that everyone spell'd the words the way they thought they should be spell'd as to how each one said the word. Or never thought, "Hmmmm ... I'm writing to someone in the king's court and I don't want to seem like some country bumpkin so I'll spell it the way he spell'd it when he wrote me so that my writ won't be thrown out. " (That's still done today ... I'll giv yu that's it likely worse today since so many are stuck on "stupid spellings" like through, though, enough ... none of which where the 'ough' are said the same way.)

Heck, I'v seen the same word spell'd sunder ways in the same writ!

Look, I'm not trying to be froward ... linguistics giv us a good framework to work within. But that is all that it is ... a good framework. The same as learning a fremd tung in the classroom givs a good framework but yu can't truly learn all the qualities of the sounds til yu hit the street ... Sadly, we can't "hit the street" for OE or even ME ... so we work within the framework as best we can; however, never be afeard to step outside of it and look at again. Eke, it is only a deal of the puzzle. It's not the alpha and the omega.

@Brus ... While many in the US would find nothing wrong with the word "yank", it is for that they are indeed "yanks" ... a northerner. The bloodiest war in US history was the War between the States ... aka the Civil War ... and aka by those in the South as the "War of Northern Aggression" or "Lincoln's War". In that war, the northerners were known as "yanks" or "yankees". Still, to this day, it's an insult in the South to call someone a "yank" or "yankee". The word is often said with "damn" ... as in "damn yanks" or "damn yankees".

It's brings a smile to a Sutherner's face when little suthernisms such as "hey" break out and spread to the rest of the country. Sooner or later, they'll get to saying "y'all" as well! lol

@Elle ... anyways: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/anyways

@Arturo ... maybe where you're from, it may be true. I haven't been to every country in South America but I do spend a lot of time in Argentina. There, they ask me if I am an "americano". They do not seem to be baffled or upset by it at all.

There are seven continents
1. Africa
2. Antarctica
3. Asia
4. Australia
5. Europe
6. NORTH America
7. SOUTH America

Further, as nshereoo pointed out, many call American "norteamericanos" ... therefore, it does exist in Spanish! So you're claim that it doesn't exist in Spanish is thus counter'd. Folks in Latin American claiming to be "Americans" is political correctness that has no historical foundation.

Your claim that Spanish doesn't use the word "americas" doesn't hold up either ... Universidad de Las Americas, is a private Chilean university ... if there is only one America in Spanish then why is that plural? There is even "La Playa de las Américas" in the Canary Islands. If they aren't playing off the AmericaS, then why the plural?

Then there is: "Arqueología Suramericana/Arqueologia Sul-Americana", published by the Department of Anthropology, Universidad del Cauca (Colombia) and the Ph.D. Program on Social Sciences of the School of Humanities of the Universidad Nacional de Catamarca (Argentina). Looks like they know that they live in South America.

Folks who live in the United States of America are Americans; those who live in the United States of Mexico are Mexicans ... Is that such a hard concept? BTW, technically "estadounidense" would be wrong as well since Mexico is "Estados Unidos Mexicanos" ... Thus, someone from Mexico also an "estadounidense".

Next, we're truly talking about English here. In English, there is no doubt about who Americans are. In English, a "North American" is anyone from north of the Panama Canal (technically, Central America is part of North America). Thus in English you can either go the long, convoluted way and say something like "a resident of the United States of America", note a non-standard wording like "USer" or "USian" if informal like the net, or you can say "American".

LOL --- We'll hav to agree to disagree for that it's all speculation. Until someone invents that wayback masheen and gets a bunch of recordings ... it's all ... ALL ... guesswork. I'v tried a few sundry ways to get yu to step away from that tree to see the forest but yur nose is stuck to the tree. So be it.

I don't know yur background but I can tell yu a bit of mine ... I'v liv'd in sundry countries ... lern'd German, Russian, Spanish to the point of being conversant ... dabble'd in French. One thing I know that that the clean sounds that one lerns in the classroom don't exist on the street. Many a time I hav been amaze'd at the spelling of a word after hearing it ... and that is from the ones that are fairly well fonetically spell'd. French ... blah ... they might as well note Chinese characters.

So, in arguendo, if both clys/clus and clos come from clusa then when they met again on the iland, the differences wouldn't hav been that great. Indeed, in ME we hav clus-, cloos-, and clos- ... and biclusen and biclosen. The French didn't hav beclose so biclosen could hav only come from OE beclysan. Yu can't say that belcose is beclysan, influence'd by French, but then say that close has nothing to do with clysan. That's a "non-sequitur". The bottom line is that a shape of close stood in English before the French came. It did not begin with the French. It was wisly influence'd by French as were many words but the root was alreddy there in OE. So I'm more in line with wiktionary, close:

From Middle English closen (“to close, enclose”), partly continuing (in altered form) earlier Middle English clusen ("to close"; from Old English clȳsan (“to close, shut”); compare beclose, forclose, etc.); and partly derived from the Middle English adjective clos (“close, shut up, confined, secret”), from Old French clos (“close, confined”, adjective) ...

Maybe I'm not being clear ... that's always mightlic ... this is anecdotal but I'v liv'd in other countries of a sunder tung. I DON'T hav a good ear ... I cannot tell yu how many times I'v spell'd an outlander word wrong ... and we're talking about fairly fonetic tungs like Spanish and German. Likely the only tung that is spell'd more unfonetically than English is French. Now how much nearer French was to being fonetic in the ME, I can't say but it wisly screw'd up English spelling. Keep in mind, that we're talking about Norman-French which likely had somewhat of a Germanic lilt to it. So for me, it is a small hop for someone to be saying something more like clus but writing clos.

And isn't that how words change and new tungs come out of old ones? Another thing is that there was no purity of sounds and speech among the Saxons. Most of what is taught nowadays is rooted on the LWS (Late West Saxon) dialect which was only one of three of the bigger dialects.

Further, I don't think that French has be spoken the same way thru the years so the true way that close was said by them may or not hav been nearer to Latin clusa or clausa. Given that clusa is a Late Latin change then we can see that it was still in a state of flux as well.

Are there any other words sum-hwat like this: sponge and spynge from L. spongia from Gr. spongia (o=y)

Take a look at the words dūstig, dystig, dȳstig (all for dusty; y=ȳ=ū) … dust itself is dust and dūst (u=ū). If we were to put how we now think each of those vowels sound then we would come up with some pretty wide sundernesses among them. Dialects? Accents? Why did the scribes choose the spellings they chose? Why do we now mark some of the vowels with the ¯ for the same word? So you see, I don't hav the same trust that some of the words hav been rightly markt in the first place. I take it all with a grain of salt.

Anent close, I think it might help if we note ü insted of y and üü insted of ȳ … and uu for ū. Thus clüs, and cluus are not far from the Latin clusa and OHG klúsa. I'll leav it to Ængelfolc as to whether the P-GMC word came from Latin or a common PIE root.

So as we go from OE to ME there has been a big change in the way of spelling words after the Gap. English is now under a the strong inflow of French and is noting the French way of spelling for many words. The staff 'y' has an utterly nother sound in ME than in OE … So what is a scribe to do? Now, yu think that 'oo' in ME isn't the 'oo' as in loop. It's either that or a looong 'o' so if someone wrote cloos … that would with a slightly longer 'o' sound … which, if said quickly, sounds a lot like ü … either way, it isn't the same as close and likely from the OE clüs or clus … but near enuff for writing. For the Saxons, it was likely nothing than an accent and they likely thought that the Normans were saying it kind of funny. Same the other way, the French likely thought the Saxon where a bunch of hicks who didn't know how to say the word. However for the French traind scribe, his spelling of choice would more likely be 'close' regardless of how he was truthfully saying it. It was how the Normans wrote it and that is how he would hav written it.

Others? Oh there are byspels galore. Here are few.
munec > monk
sum > some (thus somedeal insted of sumdel/sumdeal; something insted of sumthing) hersum/hearsum > hearsome
þurh (thurh) > through
tung(e) > tong > tongue (the French note 'ue' … as in prolog(ue) … to show a hard g; not needed in English)
wund > wound (the injury)
wundor > wonder
Now these were often done for that the carolina script noted by the French could befuddle the stafs.
... So ME clusen > closen is no great leap to someone alreddy wonted to writing o for u.

When my kin from Wisconsin say 'huse' insted of 'house' … I know what they saying. Furthermore, they write house even tho they're saying 'huse'. So for me it's hella believable that folks could hav eathly been saying 'clus, clüs' and writing 'close, cloos'. What is not believable is that folks stoppt saying 'clus, clüs' and started saying 'close' in one fell swoop after we had been "enlightend" by the French. The slight change in the way of saying the word in no way naysays that 'close' (as a verb and noun) was in the English tung before the Normans came. Thus … close is from OE clys, clus and inflowd by OF clos. I think the wiktionary etyms of beclose and close are much nearer the mark than the OED.

I'm with Warsaw Will ... Bart didn't look too hard ... heck, all he had to do is scroll up a bit a the links and quotes are in my comments.

Drop offline for a few weeks and I miss stuff! lol

Why you should want to know the background of a word … Those who want to turn away from after-1066 Latinates, huru those word that shuv'd aside Anglo words, need to be somewhat careful. The word that goofy and I hav sparr'd over, close, is a byspel of how some etyms can be misleading. The Oxford Dict. Online (ODO) … the free side of the OED … only talks about the Old French/Latin bit. Yet, if we look at the etym of beclose on wiktionary, it givs the etym as from OE beclȳsan http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beclose . Indeed, wiktionary also givs a nod to my thought that close is a blend of OE and OF. So if you throw out "close" and any begotten shapes like "beclose" yu're needlessly throwing out words.

There are many words like this. OE had "scrudnian, scrutnian" - To examine carefully, consider, investigate … That is, to scrutinize. It also had "scrudnung, scrutnung" - Examination, investigation, enquiry … that is, scrutiny. But if you look in the ODO under scrutiny it says: Middle English: from Latin scrutinium, from scrutari ‘to search’ (originally ‘sort trash,’ from scruta ‘trash’). So if yu want to note the word without the Latin blend, then drop the 'i' and write scrutny … BTW, that is how it is said: / ˈskro͞otn-ē /.

Sometimes yu come full ring … infer: from Latin inferre ‘bring in, bring about’ (in medieval Latin‘deduce’), from in- ‘into’ + ferre ‘bring’.

To make the same word from OE then in + fer (the root of ferian - to carry, convey, bring ['ferry']) which would giv "infer". So yu'd come up with the same word!

Sorry for the hit and run again, but I'm on limited time.

Linguists hav a sted and they hav worth, but in my findings, they make the utter worst etymologists. They can see the worm in the bark of tree but can't see the forest that they're standing in the middle of.

Any … ANY … building up of the way that we THINK that words were said before masheens were made to record such words is subjectiv gesswork. Most of it is likely right but it would be nuts to say that it's all 100% right. It should only serve as an overall guide but not as an absolute marker.

So, anent OE, first we hav that the Saxons didn't mark their vowels … Or maybe I should say that they seldom did. I haven't seen it but I haven't read many handwritten writs either. I like better to read the typ'd ones so I lean on those who made the overwritings to be right. The vowel marking is a nowadays thing to help us to read and MAYBE say the word somewhat near to how some THINK the Saxons said it. Most will admit that if a boatload of Anglo-Saxons came thru a time tunnel that even our utmost, best Anglo-Saxon scholar would hav a hard time speaking with them.

Further, The Clark Concise A-S Dict. has: -clýsan v. be-c. [clûse] [[under "clûs"]]. Well there it is … it can be ȳ or ū! The ū often, but not always, yields 'oo' in today's English. It seemingly did yield 'oo' in some of the ME spellings of close (cloos).

So we know that clȳs = clūs and that clūs is akin to Plot. kluse; Dut. kluis; Kil. kluyse; Ger. klause; M. H. Ger. klóse; klús, klúse; O. H. Ger. klúsa.

So, let's say, in arguendo, that it was an EARLY borrowing from Latin clusa/clausa. Then it would hav been big a leap for the OE clȳs- to hav been said with today's long ī. The y is said to be = to ü. Keep in mind that the OE ȳ was merely the y said a little longer (or so they say) and not a nowadays ī. Yes many, gewiss not all, of the ȳ words today is spoken with a long ī. However, that IN NO WAY means that it was said that way in OE. Soothfast, the those who teach OE will often remind one of that! So it's not a matter of a nowadays ī forshaping to a nowadays 'o' … It's how near were they back about 1100 AD. If it is right that the ȳ is only a lengthening of the y, then it wouldn't hav been that far off and even nearer with the ū in clus.

There are always exceptions: One would expect fright to come from a word with ȳ … but it comes from fyrht(an). In Clark's Concise Dict. we hav fyrhto, fyrhtu (fryht-, N) f. 'fright,' fear, dread, trembling [forht] … whoa … fyrht = forht? yep … y=o … Altho they are sunder entries, they are cross-referenc'd and hav the same meanings. Look at the -o and -u (fyrhto, fyrhtu) … it could be either one hinging on how someone said them. This happens often … searo and searu.

Now for the rest of the trees in that forest.

So we hav the nobility speaking French and spelling it clos- … the Saxon would hav likely thought they were SLIGHTLY mispronoucing clys-/clus-. The Norman-French scribes would hav written clos-. When English started being written again after the Gap (the nearly 100 years where is practically stoppt being a written tung), it began noting French spelling. Thus we see spelling all over the sted!

Now with the nobility speaking French and the Church speaking Latin, English was left to the common man. Those who could write were strongly inflow'd (influenc'd) by the French spelling way and often chose French spellings of words that were somewhat alike to the Saxon word. It's only natural that someone would want to seem "worldly" and "learn'd" by noting French words given England was wielded by the French speaking Norman descendants (and still are). We still see that today … Why should anyone note 'avant garde' when we hav the English shape of 'vanguard' … but 'avant garde' is more "worldly" and toss'd about a lot.

Since the y=ü had been droppt, then that left u, oo, or o. What scribe would buck the "worldly" French way of spelling it? It was worldly to note the 'o' like the French version of the word so they did. A few chose 'oo' but not many.

So you see, it isn't a great leap from OE clȳs-/clūs- to close. That is much nearer than many etyms of other words which take some truly great leaps. To say that the Saxon dump'd the word clys-/clus- and began noting clos- is laughable … it's downright ridiculous. However, they did adopt the French spelling and either thru the GVS or with pronunciation chasing spelling, the pronunciation shifted more to the 'o' sound as well. And we often see pronunciation chasing spelling (route is more often said as 'rowt' than root; thou was once thu rather than "thow" ... many such byspels.)

That is much more plausible than saying the English folk threw away their version of close for the French version. Thus, the word 'close' didn't infare the English tung with the French but before. Therefore the etym found in the OED is wrong.

BTW, I'v been told ... reminded ... that the OED is a dictionary and not an etymological dictionary ... it overall goes back to Middle English with byspels and more or less stops there.

@goofy ... You're kidding right? You cannot possibly say with any great certainty as to how pure or clearly the words were said ... unless you hav a wayback masheen that took you back to get some recordings. Even then you'd hav to hopscotch about the land to get the sundry different samples. Given the dialects and accents ... you could hav myriad of variations. Add in the merging of the two orthographies and you hav a mess that you cannot with any "gewiss" untangle and not nearly to the degree that you need to make that distinction.

How about this: (a1398) * Trev. Barth.(Add 27944) 142b/b: Þe egle haþ on foot ***cloos*** and hool as þe foot of a gandre.

So how do we think that person meant to say that? The oo as in loop? Then that would be closer to clysan than ō in closan (if said purely). Clos- did NOT simply bestedd clys- ... the spelling merged ... then it is a matter of either the GVS or proununciation chasing spelling ... as has happen'd often!

See y'all next week, I'm out here.