Aggregious differences between English spelling and common sense

[sleipnir214]

One thing that makes English spelling so difficult for everyone, both English as a first language and English as an additional language, is the fact that standard English spelling is not just non-phonetic but often very non-phonetic.

I'm not talking about words like "phonetic" (which, ironically, should be spelled "fonetik"), which is mildly irritating. I'm talking about words with such a high percentage of superfluous letters that they offend common sense: "through" and "eight" come immediately to mind.

Does anyone have a further example?

Anyone have more examples?

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[BJCooperIT]

The "eign" words such as feign or reign. I have never understood what purpose the "g" serves unless it is to make these words have a long A sound and thus be the exceptions to the "I before E" rule.

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[sleipnir214]

Reign" I can understand -- it's based on the Latin "regnum" via Old French and Middle English. (Source: yourdictionary.com)

But "foreign" never had the dratted 'g' in it. [Latin "foras" ("outside")-> Late Latin "foranus" ("on the outside") -> Old French "forain" -> Middle English "forein"] (Source: yourdictionary.com)

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[sleipnir214]

The English comedian Eddie Izzard in his routine "Dress to Kill" has a riff where he opines that "through" is spelled the way it is to cheat at Scrabble.

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[Zathras]

BTW, "Aggregious" is an egregiously bad spelling of the word "egregious." Was that intentional to make a point?

 

[sleipnir214]

I was hoping someone would notice sooner or later.

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[SF0751]

My personal favorite is the military rank Colonel, which is pronounced "kernel".

http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-col1.htm

gives a very good explanation of the reason behind this dissimilated word.

Susan
[sub]You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.[/sub]
[sup]Aristophanes, 424 B.C.[/sup]
[sup]Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.

 

[LFCfan]

There is also lieutenant - "lufftenant", but that's sort of borrowed from the French pronunciation of "lieu" (I think - or rather the British person's version of the French pronunciation...)

There's a town in the north of England called Keighley. It is pronounced Keethly.

I admit to loving this about the English language. It is my second languauge (my first is Greek, so completely different! Although there are a number of idiosyncrasies in Greek as well of course...)

(Off Topic: I saw Eddie Izzard perform once - he was wonderful)

 

[TonyJollans]

Everyone likes quoting the various pronunciations of "ough" (or just "gh"). Why? Because it's the one that everybody knows, perhaps because there aren't really many others. Every language has its oddities. Even in German, which is pretty strict, there are non-standard 'strong' verbs for example.

Why should "phonetic" be spelled "fonetik"? Can a language not have two constructs pronounced the same (assuming they are the same; I'm not entirely convinced there aren't some subtle differences)? Were "fonetik" a word, would it actually be pronounced "phonetic"? What are the rules governing pronunciation which would make it so, or otherwise?

Enjoy,
Tony

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[sleipnir214]

TonyJollans:
"Phonetic"...why use a double-letter character string to represent the sound for which we already have a perfectly good single letter representing the same sound?

And even with the strong German verbs, the spelling is pretty regular. Their formation is idomatic, but their spelling is not.

But it's not just "gh"...

It's sometimes "ie" and "ei".

It's sometimes "ei" and "ai" and "ae".

It's "c", "k", and "ck" and occasionally "ch".

Then there's the whole redundant "q" thing. "Queen"? "Antique"? In neither case does the "q" represent a sound that another letter does not also represent. "Q" should be reserved for import words from Semitic languages that differentiate between a "k" sound and a glotteral "k" sound.

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[strongm]

Let's leave English as it is, slowly evolving. The last time busibodies decided to try and regularize the language (back in the 17th century?) they tried to make it follow the patterns of Latin (which is where the whole silly idea of not splitting an infinitive came from)

 

[LFCfan]

phonetic" is derived from a greek word (phone, pronounced fonee, = voice), and ph is always used for such words - ie starting with the letter phi (anyone who has ever done a mathematics course will know what that looks like!)

 

[TonyJollans]

When words are first introduced into the language they inherit some form of anglicised spelling, an attempt at representing a foreign pronunciation which has no direct English equivalent. Over time the foreign pronunciation is lost and we end up with apparently idiosyncratic spellings; I maintain that there are not really that many of them and there is certainly nothing we can do about them.

Different spellings for apparently similar sounds do have subtle effects on pronunciation, so for example chic and chick are pronounced differently even though the "k" sound at the end is the same.

Double letters strings are generally representations of single letters in other scripts (the Greek phi for example as already mentioned) and the reason they sound the same as other letters is simply because English speakers can't quite get their tongues round the original. Does that mean we should change the spelling? I don't know, but I think the language would lose something if we did.

It is true that it is not always easy to spell an unfamiliar word from the way it sounds (and English is certainly not unique in this respect), but there are very few occasions when it is not possible to pronounce an unfamiliar word from the way it is spelled.

"Q", I must admit, is in a class of its own.

Enjoy,
Tony

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[BJCooperIT]

One word that offends me on several levels is gorgeous. The "e", which is not pronounced, serves only to transform the 2nd "g" to a "j" sound. Then there is the matter of the "ous" when "us" would have sufficed.

What was wrong with "gorjus"?

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[cian]

Ok, switching language here but I always love telling people about these.
How would you pronounce these Irish words?

Aighidh = i
Tiocfaidh = chucky

There's millions more in Irish.

Sorry, back to english...

All of those words have pointless spelling: trough, dough, through, though etc etc
And even other ones like angle (ang-el), angel (ayn-jel), salmon (sam-on), psalm (sam)



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[sha76]

What about the plus side of words inheriting spelling from the language they derived from? I would have thought most of us have come across new words that we've been able to understand as we can recognise they share the same root as a word we already know? This works to a certain extent across other (European) languages too, if everything were to be spelled phonetically wouldn't we lose a whole level of understanding?

 

[sleipnir214]

TonyJollans:
This article[/b] at WorldWideWords states that "q" came to us from Phoenician via Greek, Etruscan, Classical Latin, and French. It actually did originally represent a back-of-the-throat glotteral. No one but the Phoenicians actually need the letter, but the Greeks were the only ones to abandonon "q" -- everyone else just adapted the letter to special-purpose spellings of the "k"-sound.



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[Chopstik]

For another word to add to the list of words that don't sound the way they are spelled, try ensemble. I've heard it pronounced various ways, but none of them ever sound the way it is spelled.

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[LFCfan]

that would be a French-related post though...

 

[Zathras]

I have always thought of the French language this way: Put in extra letters to make the words look beautiful; leave out a few letters to make the words sound beautiful.
[LOL]