I have always thought that the irregularities in its pronunciation and spelling is both maddening and hilarious at the same time.
Like how these words are pronounced differently despite having similar (or the exact same) spelling:
tough, though, through blood, good, mood bomb, womb meat, steak howl, bowl heart, heard to read (present), to read (past) wind (noun), to wind (verb) tear (noun), to tear (verb)
The last mystery and quite possibly not English: why is the name Shawn and Sean are pronounced the same, but the state Kansas and Arkansas are different?
I mean, if a room full of language geeks is not the exact right place to discuss this, I donât know where is.
Would be delighted to see more examples of how amusingly weird English is as a language, or maybe some answers to the mystery!
Iâve never understood that example. It requires mashing parts of words from other languages to make it work. Aside from plurals and newer verb conjugations, English doesnât really Frankenstein its words; it just steals them (a lot of them) and garbles the pronunciations.
I agree. We donât necessarily make anything up, words are just is âborrowedâ from other languages and given the English pronunciation. I think the point of the âghotiâ exercise isnât so much about the word, but about how there are no solid rules to pronouncing each letter or letter combination. Whereas, in other languages the letters have very specific sounds associated and if they change it has a rule or diacritic mark to indicate as such.
Is there any letter in the English alphabet that doesnât have more than one way to pronounce it? And follow up with are there any solid rules as to when we pronounce letters different?
I love the fact that the letter removals were done by Americans for efficiency reasons. So maybe Americans just like everything quick and efficient, including, correct me if Iâm wrong⊠the founding of fast food?
Also would you by any chance know the answer why Kansas and Arkansas are pronounced differently? Or Shawn and Sean?
I have no good answer for Kansas vs. Arkansas. I think the Shawn/Sean is, once again, about the roots of the language that it originally came from. I had a friend in school named Shaughn, which was short for Shaughnessy.
From what I found, it is because the name derives from the Algonquian term for the Quapaw tribe, Akansa (with the prefix âaâ which is used for ethnic groups). Various spellings were used, but the State legislature officially adopted the French pronunciation in 1881. In French, you donât pronounce the âsâ in the plural.
Thank you for the explanation. It crossed my mind if it may be influenced by the Native American language, so I guess now it is clear that this is somewhat unrelated to English. I always liked how Arkansas is pronounced!
This is something Iâve come across when I worked as a typesetter/editor. âGreen great dragonsâ can exist, but the word order implies that there is a special type or species of dragon called the âgreat dragonâ (as a two-word noun) and that there is a green one of those.
A lot of animal names in particular use size, color or origin (region), and if youâre not careful to compartmentalize the name as a single unit, trying to then follow this word order can get confusing fast!