Today we’re looking at journey, and there’s more crazy letter switching!
Journey showed up in the early thirteenth century with pretty much the same meaning, coming from the Old French journee. Before that, in Vulgar Latin, it was actually diurnum, day, and in classical Latin, it’s diurnus, daily or daylong. Yes, that’s a d-to-j switch we’re talking about. I can’t explain the switch, but the reason journey is what we know it as is because of Middle English. Their word for journey meant a day, which got stretched to a day’s work, and then a day’s walk. From there, it morphed into what we know it as today.
Crazy, right? Oh, and if you want another j word that comes from diurnus, we have journal. That one makes more sense. Slightly.