Spelling and Etymology
Vocal cords, a term commonly used to refer to the vocal folds, was coined by the French anatomist Antoine Ferrein in 1741. In his violin analogy of human voice, he postulated that the moving air acted like a bow on cordes vocales. An alternative spelling in English is 'vocal chords', possibly due to the musical connotations or to confusion with the geometrical definition of the word "chord". While both spellings have historical precedence, standard American spelling is 'vocal cords'. According to the Oxford English Corpus, a database of 21st Century texts that contains everything from academic journal articles to unedited writing and blog entries, contemporary writers opt for the nonstandard 'chords' instead of 'cords' 49% of the time. The 'vocal cords' spelling is also standard in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Read more about this topic: Vocal Folds
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