[Swordmaker]

Simply aint so. I had a traditional English education, and my favorite teacher, Mrs. Harvey was a wonderful older lady straight out of the Victorian Era. She routinely called those wonderful insects "flutterbys". And think, what does a butterfly do? It flutters by.

If your Mrs. Harvey's quaint malapropistic derivation of "flutterby" is true, then why didn't the name of the insects stay flutterby instead of it being being changed to the less appealing name of "butterfly."

[CanadianLibertarian]

If your Mrs. Harvey's quaint malapropistic derivation of "flutterby" is true, then why didn't the name of the insects stay flutterby instead of it being being changed to the less appealing name of "butterfly."

Good question. I really don't know! But you know, I don't think her use of the word was a malapropism, she would laugh and quite explicitly tell us how times had changed and that "flutterby" was the original word. I mean she was aware that folks don't use that word anymore, but was quite clear that they used to.

[Publius6961]

then why didn't the name of the insects stay flutterby instead of it being being changed to the less appealing name of "butterfly."

Many common English words have morphed in the distant past by transposition of the syllabic consonants.
I wish I could think of some offhand but I can't.

I do recall many times wondering to myself why it happened.