Published on August 13th, 2021 📆 | 5917 Views ⚑
0On timing, technology and the weirdness of the English language
Although I learned a smattering of a couple of other languages during my student days, Iâm pretty nearly monolingual, and the language is English. Iâm so used to it that I would almost say English âmakes senseâ to me.
But it doesnât. Make sense that is. Iâm just used to it.
And Iâve long been aware that it was one of the tougher languages to adjust to for the non-native speaker. Still, I kinda cracked up at this collection of examples of some of the things that make it so hard for non-natives to learn, assembled by linguist and author Aria Okrent in a piece for Aeon titled âTypos, Tips and Misprintsâ and subtitled: âWhy is English spelling so weird and unpredictable? Donât blame the mix of languages; look to quirks of timing and technology.â
Oh yeah, I was gonna give you list of what you might call words-that-should-rhyme-but-donât, from the top of Okrentâs piece:
English spelling is ridiculous. Sew and new donât rhyme. Kernel and colonel do. When you see an ough, you might need to read it out as âawâ (thought), âowâ (drought), âuffâ (tough), âoffâ (cough), âooâ (through), or âohâ (though). The ea vowel is usually pronounced âeeâ (weak, please, seal, beam) but can also be âehâ (bread, head, wealth, feather). Those two options cover most of it â except for a handful of cases, where itâs âayââ (break, steak, great). Oh wait, one more ⌠thereâs earth. No wait, thereâs also heart.
The English spelling system, if you can even call it a system, is full of this kind of thing.
The full (and no, âfullâ doesnât rhyme with âlullâ or âmullâ or âcullâ or âhull,â but those last four donât rhyme with âpullâ and you get the idea by now). The funny/smart piece can be accessed via this link.
Gloss