escallop n.

type of edible bivalve mollusk, mid-14c., scalop, from Old French escalope "shell (of a nut), carpace," a variant of eschalope, which probably is from a Germanic source (compare Old Norse skalpr "sheath," Middle Dutch schelpe "shell"), from PIE root *skel- (1) "to cut."

Extended 17c. to objects shaped or ornaments cut like scallop shells, especially in design and dress. The shells of the larger species, often colorfully marked, have been used as domestic utensils. It also was a symbol of St. James the Great, and the shells were worn or carried as by pilgrims who had been to his shrine in Compostella.

the later Romans evidently found words beginning in sc-, sp-, st- difficult or unpleasant to pronounce; in Late Latin forms begin to emerge in i- (such as ispatium, ispiritu), and from 5c. this shifted to e-. The development was carried into the Romanic languages, especially Old French, and the French words were modified further after 15c. by natural loss of -s- (the suppression being marked by an acute accent on the e-), while in other cases the word was formally corrected back to the Latin spelling (for example spécial). Hence French état for Old French estat for Latin status, etc. It also affected Romanic borrowings from Germanic (such as espy, eschew).

A different e- is a reduced form of Latin ex- before consonants (see ex-), and the e- in enough is an unfelt survival of an Old English alternative form of ge-.