The Glade 4.0

Dilemma / Ontario / 80s.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I have literally never seen or heard of it being referred to as "dilemna" before this thread.

Dilemma / '90s / Alabama

This, as well.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Correct spelling - North Dakota - 80's

This thread is the first I've heard of the "mn" spelling.

Of interest, two of the three people who said they were taught "dillemna" were schooled in Massachusetts.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Out of curiosity, for the "dilemna" people: How were you taught to pronounce it?

Same way as dilemma.

Same for me...

Dilemma / Western Washington / 70's

I voted "can't remember", but I'll take Midge's word for it.

I can't recall, but if I had to guess, I would wager that I learned the word "dilemma" from reading, not from school. I have never seen "dilemna" previously.

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With a silent 'n'.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Dilemna Philadelphia area 80's-90's.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I've seen "dilemna" numerous times, always thought it was the metric spelling of the word tho.

Dilemma here, tho.

Dilemna, late 60s, San Jose, CA

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I don't remember ever being taught that specific word, but I've never seen it spelled with an "n" before.

Northeast (Vermont) 80s.

Yes, but the key is that they end with 'mn', and thus have no following vowel. Consider the etymology:

damn <- L. damnare
autumn <- L. autumnus
condemn <- L. condemnare
column <- L. columna
hymn <- L. hymnus
solemn <- L. sollemnis

These all originated from Latin words that have a voiced 'n'. And it's only in the particular lexemes where the final syllable has been clipped that the 'n' becomes silent (simply because 'mn' is hard for English-speakers to pronounce without a following vowel). Other lexemes for the same lemma (see what I did there?) voice the 'n':

damn: damnation, damned (slight), damnedest (slight), damnable
autumn: autumnal
condemn: condemnation, condemnatory, condemned (slight)
column: columnar, columnist
hymn: hymnal
solemn: solemnity, solemnize, solemness (probably cheating, but hey)

"Dilemma", on the other hand is unchanged from its Latin and Greek roots. It's simply "di" + "lemma". Even supposing that it did derive from something like "lemnus" (not a real Latin word so far as I know) we would expect it to take the English form "dilemn" and have related lexemes like "dilemnal" in which the 'n' was voiced.

Also, "lemma" by itself is an English word as well, used in linguistics and logic. There doesn't seem to have been any history of someone teaching that spelling as "lemna", which makes it even stranger.

In any case, I had never heard of this before now, so:

Dilemma, Dallas, 30

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Dilemma, Rhode Island, 80's

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Does...not...compute...

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Wtf? TMI.

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Ditto Stathol's analysis, right down to "I'd never even heard of anybody that spelled it (much less was taught to spell it!) with an 'n' before this thread.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Psst, Stathol ...

You forgot "dampner" in your etymology of "damn".

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I'd like to point out, for any to whom this is unclear : I'm not arguing for the validity of 'dilemna'. I'm just stating that it's how I was taught in school to spell the word.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Makes you wonder what else you were taught that was wrong, doesn't it?

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I was taught in sixth grade that music makes plants grow faster, and that water contracts when it freezes.

You know like:

Imperial-----------Metric

Favor-------------Favour
Flavor-------------Flavour
Color--------------Colour
Center------------ Centre

And so on . . .