I remember when I first came across this word, I thought it was pronounced /'sɜr-dʒint/ (SER-jeent). Now I am curious as to why the first syllable is pronounced /sar/ rather than /sɜr/. I looked at the [etymology](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=sergeant&searchmode=none), and found that the word has always had either *sir* or *ser* at the beginning, never *sar*. To top that off, *sergeant* comes from the Old French *sergent*, from Latin *servientem* meaning *serving*, the same root word that we get the word *servant* from. To my knowledge, *servant* has never been pronounced /'sar-vənt/. Why and since when has *sergeant* been pronounced *sargent*?