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Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyz to Linguistics Humor@sh.itjust.worksEnglish · 6 months ago

The wonders of English spelling

files.catbox.moe

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The wonders of English spelling

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Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyz to Linguistics Humor@sh.itjust.worksEnglish · 6 months ago
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  • Eiri
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    6 months ago

    People will really say shit about the silent letters in French and then completely ignore the unbelievably inconsistent pronunciation of “gh” in English.

    • Zwiebel@feddit.org
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      6 months ago

      And the french silent letters are pretty consistent

    • IndiBrony@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I, for one, love my Ghoughphtheightteeaus with some ghoti 🥔🐟

      • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyzOP
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        6 months ago

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti for people unaware

        • MonkeyBusiness@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Thanks! I thought ghoti was some sort of Indian food and was using that as a hint to to figure out the first word. The best I did on my own was gaufth-ate-tea-aus and figured I hadn’t heard of it.

          Hint
          • The “gh” in “hiccough”
          • The “ough” in “doughnut”
          • The “phth” in “phthisis”
          • The “eigh” in “neighbour”
          • The “tte” in “gazette”
          • The “eau” in “plateau”

          https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ghoughphtheightteeau

    • Pyr
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      6 months ago

      And why is “kn” even a thing in English?

      Knowledge? Knight? Knee? Knapsack? Knitting?

      How does that make any sense at all?

      Edit" and then there’s Gnome! Why isn’t it Knome? Or Gnowledge?

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        6 months ago

        because it was literally pronounced like that not too long ago, compare “knight” to “knekt” in swedish.

        • NostraDavid@programming.devBanned from community
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          6 months ago

          In Dutch we still have “knecht” (knave/servant), and I recall that Dutch and English have some overlap, so it makes sense.

          I also recall a video about English, having adopted the Latin alphabet, made less sense than English under the previous Futhark (runes).

      • Eiri
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        6 months ago

        I’ll be honest I’ve always found it weird that they decided to stop pronouncing those consonants at some point. Those words just sound better with the K pronounced!

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Great voul shift and the Normans.

      • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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        6 months ago

        It’s gnomic.

    • This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ69ny57pR0

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