A small piece?

Perhaps it isn’€™t.

I first saw this word in print as “€œsmidgin”€ so I persist in thinking this is the correct spelling. This is why publishers, newspapers and writers of captions for TV news and the information pages on the red button have a responsibility to ensure any spellings they use are accepted ones. Anyone coming across a spelling for the first time could be influenced by it. Though it is as well to check a dictionary.

My Chambers doesn’t have an entry at all for it but my Shorter Oxford lists smidgen and smidgin. Dictionary.co.uk has only smidgen. Dictionary.com has all three.

I can only suppose smidgeon has arisen from an erroneous analogy with pigeon. I must say smidgeon looks very odd to me, especially as the two words are not connected in their origin.

When speaking or hearing them I always think “smidj-in” and “pidj-on.”

Surprisingly, to me at any rate, pigeon is an alternative spelling for pidgin (also pidgeon) – a mash-up of two languages which is not as fully developed as a creole.

So, in the strange way in which my mind works:- Pigeon? Creole?

Kid Creole and the Coconuts: Stool Pigeon