Jailor?

[Morbius]

This word cost me a rosette in yesterday's 10 letter puzzle.  I've never seen it spelt that way before.  Is that spelling really common?

[Jacki]

I must say it is. Sailor, tailor and jailor. 

[pat]

This word cost me a rosette in yesterday's 10 letter puzzle.  I've never seen it spelt that way before.  Is that spelling really common?

Definitely not.

[pat]

I must say it is. Sailor, tailor and jailor. 

Sadly, logic doesn't work when it comes to spellings in English. Bailer, hailer, jailer, mailer, nailer, sailor, tailor, wailer.

[mkenuk]

Not sure about sailor or jailor, but tailor is from an old French word taillour

[ensiform]

A perfectly acceptable alternate spelling.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/jailor

https://wikidiff.com/jailor/jailer

https://biblehub.com/library/dick/lectures_on_the_acts_of_the_apostles/lecture_xviii_the_conversion_of.htm

[Morbius]

Acceptable?  Yes, certainly.  Common?  Questionable, in my view.  How often are variant spellings classified as common?

[anona]

Ngram viewer shows them as having equal frequency around 1830 but now jailer as much more common. I've not seen jailor used.

[mkenuk]

This is an actual quotation from 'Wikidiff'.

I wonder if anyone can explain the underlined part to me?

Jailor is an alternative form of jailer.
 As nouns the difference between jailor and jailer is that jailor is (jailer) while jailer is one who enforces confinement in a jail or prison.

 

https://wikidiff.com/jailor/jailer

[Morbius]

Seems like an error.  Perhaps the difference is that a jailor sends people to prison, while a jailer keeps them there.

[Alan W]

The jailor spelling has definitely dropped off since the mid 19th century. The News on the Web corpus shows it as currently less than one twentieth as common as jailer in the US. In Britain the ratio is about 7 to 1. India is the only place where English language newspapers are more likely to write jailor than jailer.

I conclude it's no longer a common spelling, and it will be treated as a rare word from now on.

[Jacki]

Well I'll note that it's a rare word however I feel it's a lot less rare in my experience than a heap of other words!

[mkenuk]

Maybe it's just me, but I feel that the word jailer itself, however it's spelled, has a bit of an 'old-fashioned' ring to it.
The word 'Prison' now seems to be much more common than jail.
(Not in 'Monopoly' of course which still has its 'Jail'!)

Type jailer on Wikipedia and you are directed to a page headed 'Prison Officer' which lists some of the terms used in different parts of the world - 'corrections officer', 'correctional officer', 'detention officer' etc.

Perhaps in a few years the word jailer will have followed some of its earlier synonyms such as turnkey into near oblivion.

[TRex]

The word 'Prison' now seems to be much more common than jail.

I think of jail as belonging to a city or county for shorter sentences whereas a prison belongs to a state or country for longer sentences. And I think of turnkey as prison slang.

[mkenuk]

I think this may be getting into the realms of local usage - UK and US.
In England, all places of long-term confinement are the responsibility of the Government via the Home Secretary. They are all named 'HM Prison'.
Scotland and N. Ireland have their own prison service; the places themselves are still named 'HM Prison' however.

The word 'jail' itself will of course last as long as Gilbert and Sullivan do; Ko-Ko in The Mikado was 'taken from the county jail / By a set of curious chances'

'Gaol' will be around as long as Oscar Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol continues to be taught in Eng.Lit courses.

turnkey meaning jailer is 'archaic' according to the COD. Its newer use in the phrase turnkey project will, however, ensure that the word itself survives.