I’m picking “Colonel” needs to be respelled to match how it’s pronounced.
Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?
In this thread, a lot of folks who would use their one wish to make the language better.
But I would change “their” to be spelled “the’re” and pronounced “all’y’all’s”.
I hope I do grow up to be more like the rest of you, and make better choices, in the future.
People like you being in charge is how English to to this position in the first place!
Nesscary
…Neccisary
…Neseccary
Fuck it, it’s now “Nesisary”
English is a second language to me, and at this point it’s probably the only commonly used word I consistently mess up. It usually ends up something like ‘nessecairy’
Totally understandable, one of a handful of English words that I both know are spelled “wrongL and also have to put conscious thought into spelling before I write it.
Ironicly, “conshus” one such candidate.
That’s a bit unesesary
Can never remember how to spell this absolute fuckery of a word. I concur.
That’s so weird. I’m dyslexic and all but this word is very much common sense for me. Maybe because I’m a polyglot and in Italian it’s necessario?
English is my second language, but I’ve always remembered it by “one cardigan, two socks” necessary
Necessary is literally spelt how it’s pronounced though.
spelt how it’s pronounced though
I’m not sure you meant this as a joke but it is funny.
Learning yet another irregular pronunciation because some N-hundred years ago their majesty Shithead von Cunt wanted to sound fancy and everyone just played along is not funny.
cries, not knowing how to properly pronounce most English words
Necessary? I would have never thought of any of those weird spellings. It’s spelled like it’s said lol.
Nesree
wait was it nesisary or nesusary.
nesesary? nesasary? nesysary?
“Needed”
Comfterble
Kumfirtubble
But saying “com-fidi-ble” is so much more fun
English orthography is awful. Hard “c” AND soft “c”? Are you crazy? How about that “k” that is already the hard c sound? It should be “kat” and “kar”. And it only goes downhill from there (or their?!?).
We should clean it up someday. But we’ll probably end up with LOL-WTF-speak.
Some of the low hanging fruit would just be to pick one pronunciation of “oo” and stick with it:
- book
- blood
- floor
- brooch
- boot
The problem is that English has far more vowel sounds than vowels. And that’s without even having certain sounds that are common in other languages like “ü”.
Linguistics would teach that it is the orthography that is flawed. The English language has many vowel sounds, more than most languages. But as you demonstrate, the orthography “lumps” many of them together. Which, again, is why I think English orthography is awful.
There’s a great article at Wikipedia, scroll down to the “Vowels” section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology
There’s a link the the article above to this page, which I don’t suggest viewing on your phone. It has a great effort to document vowels across dialects of English, scroll down again to the huge table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English_dialects
Be careful, the linguistics “rabbit hole” is deep (but fascinating)!
Thanks, I really like the IPA and I wish it were something that was taught in high school. It would be great if people were competent at reading it and could maybe use it to explain how something sounds. It’s hard enough that English has such flawed orthography. Then you add the fact that there are dozens of English dialects and it only makes things more complicated.
Do you know about Dr. Geoff Lindsey’s YouTube channel?
It’s not all bad. The varied spellings of English help with visual pattern recognition and increased reading speed.
That must have already happened and we got the Geordie accent from it!
Macabre. Why do you need two silent letters?
Just change the entire french language while you’re at it
Blame the French.
British English voices those letters in most accents. I think the two silent letters is just a North American thing.
Similar to herb.
Not saying you’re wrong at all, it’s not exactly a common word to hear said out loud. But I’ve never heard anyone do this and the very idea of it blows my mind.
(NE England, here)
The last syllable is usually pretty subtle, like the br- in bread, but very quietly voiced. I’d say I hear it maybe 75% of the time I hear the word. Currently in Yorkshire, via SW England, London and NW England. The syllable is a lot less subtle in a West Yorks accent!
Did you learn French at GCSE level? Possibly there’s a relationship between that and pronouncing the re like that in French-derived words. Cadre is another example. If it is related to learning French, then it’s probably on the decline as French teaching is on the decline and foreign languages are no longer compulsory at GCSE.
Clearly I need to work this word into more conversations with people and listen closely! That said I only just found out recently that most of the country pronounces the middle weekday as “Wensday” so contrary to stereotypes I think we might be the ones talking properly up here 😉
(schools around me were generally an even split between French and German for GCSE, dunno how that affects your theory, also I had no idea languages were going away from school and this makes me sad to learn)
Why use a French word then?
Please wait in the queue with four unpronounced letters
I always pronounce this “quayway”
What you spelled there would be pronounced key-way haha
“queue”, 4/5 letters are silent.
Wait how is that pronounced? I’ve always read it as Mah-Ca-Burr. It’s one of these words I learned through text exposure rather than English classes…
It’s aluminium you stupid Americans.
Might start an argument but:
GIF -> GHIFIt’s actually pronounced “JIF”
It stands for the Jraphics Interchange Format
Giraffics? 🦒
JIF is peanut butter
Jif is a surface cleaner.
“It’s a floor wax.”
“It’s a dessert topping.”
“It’s a floor wax.”
“It’s a dessert topping.”
Vanilla ice cream and peanut butter ❤️
Jolly Image Format
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/Nrk8sqZfsgI?si=20rIrWuZbuPPeJua
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
GH as in “laugh”? People’d start flame wars over whether “FIF” is the intended pronunciation…
I just wish we spelled things in a more German-‘esk’ fashion. They use K more appropriately. Examples such as “panik” and “akkordeon” for accordion. I find their spelling to be more straightforward and sensical.
Arkinsaw
“Arkansas” and “Kansas” are both from the Osage language, but the former passed through French on its way to English.
i’m from somewhere in europe and always wondered why you guys would pronounce those two so different!
I’ve heard that, but “Ar Kan Saw” is nothing like how a French person would pronounce “Arkansas”
That is interesting. Do you have a source?
deleted by creator
It’s the pirate Kansas.
2010 Arkansas Code Title 1 - General Provisions Chapter 4 - State Symbols, Motto, Etc § 1-4-105 - Pronunciation of state name.
Be it therefore resolved by both houses of the General Assembly, that the only true pronunciation of the name of the state, in the opinion of this body, is that received by the French from the native Indians and committed to writing in the French word representing the sound. It should be pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final “s” silent, the “a” in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables. The pronunciation with the accent on the second syllable with the sound of “a” in “man” and the sounding of the terminal “s” is an innovation to be discouraged.
Worcestershire
Aisle should become something like ile.
Though shall now be spelled: Tho.
to rhyme with Pho?
It’s already pronounced that way.
“Pho”, the noodle dish, is pronounced “fuh” like “fussy”
TIL I’ve been mispronounceing Pho.
Y tho?
Idk my bff jill?
Thou shalt spell the word “Pheonix” P-H-E-O-N-I-X, not P-H-O-E-N-I-X, regardless of what the Oxford English Dictionary tells you.
feenicks
Fenix, like the dude from StarCraft?
Removed by mod
Oasis, just a band
The Beach Boys? Just a band.
Nirvana?
Oh boy, a word wouldn’t be enough.
I would make English as consistent as Spanish is regarding phonetical consistency, or even more.
Oh, you have never seen this word ever before and you don’t know how to pronounce it? No worries, these universal rules will allow you just get it right, because letters always sound the same!
“Spanish regarding phonetical consistency”
Checking in from Oaxaca
I dunno, Oaxaca seems pretty straightforward. oa is pronounced kinda like “ua”, I guess, but midword x is usually a “hh” sound anyway so that’s the only slightly weird thing.
Fun fact, the Spanish X used to be pronounced like the Greek χ, which is why Meχico, Teχas and Oaχaca are pronounced the way they are now in English (formerly like a “kh” and now like a “ks”)
To be honest, that was barely fun
The only one they changed is the double l. ll to sounds like a y. But in some circles they consider that a seperate letter to the Spanish alphabet. Overall it is fairly consistent.
Even better, Spanish words are typically broken into two (or is it to or too) letter syllables.
I mean knowing romance languages makes spelling in English easy. Also knowing something about Greek and Latin. Understanding the root of a word etc makes it a lot easier.
Right about spelling. For a non-native, it becomes somewhat difficult when it is about the “right” pronunciation of the written language. There’s a lot of French influence for example. Now they have a lot of French words, some feel horribly mispronounced and some aren’t. And then there’s a lot of dialects so that mixing pronunciations can hardly be avoided.
English is pretty good (generally) at doing the same thing.
Y’all are just bringing up words that English stole from other languages.
You can use phonetics to figure out how to pronounce most words in English.
We just really wish when we stole them we changed the spelling to match the pronunciation if we wanted the pronunciation to stay the same of where we stole it from.
The amount of words that are not “stolen” from other languages is neglible…
Cat from German Katze, from Latin catta
Car(t) from German Karren
Kitchen grom German Küche
Bike/Bicycle from French bicycle
Leaf from German Laub
Beef, mutton, pigeon from French boeuf, mouton, pigeon
Cow, sheep, dove from German Kuh, Schaf, Taube
Computer from Latin computare
Sun and moon from German Sonne and Mond
Lunatic from Latina luna
Death from German Tod
Snug from Norse snøggr
Funny from Swedish fånig
Breeze from Spanish brisa
Ranch from Spanish rancha
Brave from Italian bravo
Arcade from Italian arcata
Dildo from Italian diletto
…The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
–James D. Nicoll
You may like this essay on why English has weird spellings. Think technological timings.
https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-the-english-spelling-system-so-weird-and-inconsistent