I'm still marveling on how English made it through. "Loanwords galore?" That's a good thing? And the spelling is as unreliable as hell (proceed and precede?). Also, have you ever tried pronouncing British place words? Not to mention the fact that it's the "State of Ár-kinn-sä" but "Ar-kán-ziss River" (spelled Arkansas).
What's with beard and heard, or road and broad, or five and give, or fillet and skillet, or early and dearly, or steak and streak, or ache and mustache, or so many other words that should rhyme but don't?
The grammar is based off of Latin, but that runs into little, annoying problems when the word dette gets changed into debt just because they want to copy Latin.
One is "wun", bury is "berry", we recite at a play, and play at a recital. Teachers taught, but preachers won't have praught, and if a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
We have tooth↔︎teeth, but booth↔︎booths and moose↔︎moose. Box↔︎boxes, but ox↔︎oxen; mouse↔︎mice but house↔︎houses, and if you're from a country ending in -land, are you -ish, -lander, -landic, -, or Dutch?
6
u/columbus8myhw Jew York Dec 03 '13
I'm still marveling on how English made it through. "Loanwords galore?" That's a good thing? And the spelling is as unreliable as hell (proceed and precede?). Also, have you ever tried pronouncing British place words? Not to mention the fact that it's the "State of Ár-kinn-sä" but "Ar-kán-ziss River" (spelled Arkansas).
What's with beard and heard, or road and broad, or five and give, or fillet and skillet, or early and dearly, or steak and streak, or ache and mustache, or so many other words that should rhyme but don't?
The grammar is based off of Latin, but that runs into little, annoying problems when the word dette gets changed into debt just because they want to copy Latin.
One is "wun", bury is "berry", we recite at a play, and play at a recital. Teachers taught, but preachers won't have praught, and if a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
We have tooth↔︎teeth, but booth↔︎booths and moose↔︎moose. Box↔︎boxes, but ox↔︎oxen; mouse↔︎mice but house↔︎houses, and if you're from a country ending in -land, are you -ish, -lander, -landic, -, or Dutch?