[Vocabulary] Why is it 'smoothie' and not 'smoothy'?

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Pieterj62

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For my work I have to check menues of restaurants and today a came along the word 'smoothie'. Although I find the spelling of this drink both with ie and y, I am confused what the correct spelling is. Smoothie seems to be the right spelling, but why isn' t it one smoothy, two smoothies, as in hobby/hobbies?
 

charliedeut

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Hi,

Probably someone with a deeper knowledge (are you around, BobK? ;-)) might be able to tell you.

Online Etymology Dictionary
Online Etymology Dictionary

To me, the only apparent difference is that "smoothie" was coined/introduced much later, probably ignoring the "rules" that made up words like "hobby". However, as I said, I'm no expert.

PS: note that the plural of "menu" is "menus", not "menues".
 
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Kathvit

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Honestly speaking? I don't think there is an etymological reason for the spelling of smoothie with an ie instead of a y. It just looks cool on menus.
 

emsr2d2

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I don't think there's any good reason for it. That's just how whoever coined the word decided to spell it. I don't think it looks particularly "cool" either way. It's just a word.
 

probus

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I think that smoothie first entered the English language in the USA via Mexico, where a smoothie is a licuado, an extremely popular drink there. In translating licuado into English, the problem was that smoothy already had a quite different meaning in AmE.

See for example Smoothy - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Thus smoothie had to be pressed into service.
 

Tdol

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In translating licuado into English, the problem was that smoothy already had a quite different meaning in AmE.

It has the same meaning in BrE.
 
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