• ColonelPanic@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      From the UK. I’ve never seen matte spelled as matt. CA, UK and AU are generally pretty close with spelling, whereas the US is usually off doing its own thing. It’s a similar thing to blonde and blond.

    • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Now I’m not saying anything, but I dated a Matt, and he did produce a lot of paste… I’d have to run the numbers to see if it’s viable for mass-production though.

      • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Chamber’s dictionary has it as “Mat, or Matt, or matte” stating that it comes from the French “mat” or the German “matt”, so fuck knows where matte comes from!

        • force@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          The American spelling “matte” probably comes from the spelling “mate” derived from French “mate”, and doubling the “t” to differentiate it from “mate”. The British spelling “matt” was probably primarily influenced by the German word “Matt” considering the UK tended to have more German influence.

          Alternatively, either (or both) may be an etymological spelling from Latin “mattus” (which means “drunk” but likely became a word for “pale” in French).

          While I am a linguist, I only deduced this from a bit of Googling and a lot of speculating, so don’t take my word for it…