Post by TimberWolf7.62 on Oct 20, 2009 13:23:59 GMT -5
English is one of the more difficult languages to learn. If you don’t believe me, just look at all of the people born in this country who can’t speak it properly. Or try this – walk into a bar or restaurant, someplace where you are a stranger, and speak to the other people there in proper, precisely pronounced English. They’ll think you are a foreigner.
But realistically, languages like French, Spanish, and German have something around 75,000 or 100,000 words. English has over a million. Many of these words have been brought in from foreign languages without altering the spelling, so you have to know the rules for pronunciation in those languages – coup d’etat, for example. Coo day tah, not coop dee etat. French tends to drop all of those messy consonants at the end of words. (Then why the hell do they put them on there?)
Let’s clean up all of these foreign words – spell them phonetically. Orderves. Flambo. Core. That last one would change the name to Marine Core, which looks kind of funny to me, but I am willing to get used to it. It would prevent morons from pronouncing the “ps”, thereby calling it “Marine Corpse”. Look, dickweed, a Marine corpse is a dead Marine. It’s pronounced “core”, you illiterate moron.
Although, for sheer number of awkwardly-spelled words, the English have to take the blame. What blighter would use four or five letters when seven or eight will do? Draught – pronounced draw-git? No, it’s draft. Neighbor – pronounced neef-bor, since the gh in draught has an “f” sound? No, they put in the gh here and then don’t even use it. Through = thru. Photo = foto. Phone = fone. Where the hell are all of these extra letters coming from? Let’s chop those down and spell things like they sound.
And we have “q”. We never use “q” without also using “u”, so the “u” is redundant. It doesn’t modify the way that “q” is pronounced. Stop using a “u” after every “q”! Or get rid of q entirely and replace it with kw. kween, kwarter, kwiet, sekwence, subsekwent.
Another one like this is “ck”. Flick, lick, wick, nick. What possible function or benefit does the “c” provide? Is the word pronounced any differently without the “c”? Flik, lik, wik, nik. No difference. “X” always has to have an e before it (in x-ray, the “x” is a letter rather than a syllable – like the “m” in M-16) – expert, extra, exception. Why? Drop the e! That or replace x with eks. Hmm. The Eks-Files?
Even the same groups of letters are not used consistently. How come bomb, comb, and tomb don’t ryhme? The “o” has a different sound in every word – bah, coh, too. How come too, to, and two do rhyme? They should be too (rhymes with “who”), tow, and two (pronounce the “w” and pronounce the “o” like it rhymes with tow). There are so many exceptions in English that you wonder why they thought there was even enough of a trend to make a rule in the first place. “I before e except --” NO! No exceptions! Bad teacher! Bad! Just spell it one way!
Besides letters at the end of words that are unused, we have letters at the front of words that are unused. Pronounce the “g” in “gnat” or “gnu”. Or the “p” in “pneumatic” or “psychology”. Do we really, really need these letters in these words? Is there another word that is so close to “pneumatic” that we just have to have the “p” there to distinguish between the two?
Many English words end in tion, pronounced shun, like pollution, revolution, petition. Where is the sh in these words? Ti does not equal sh, folks. Ti equals titanium. Oops, wrong class. This is English. Never mind.
Hell, if we want to play around with it, we can come up with some alternate spellings for “fish”:
“phoche” (PHoto wOmen quiCHE)
“ghoti” (enouGH sYstem polluTIon)
“phyche” (PHone sYnonym quiCHE)
Or “potato”:
“ghoughpteighbteau” (hiccouGH thOUGH PTomaine nEIGHbor deBT burEAU)
Let’s overhaul the whole freaking system. Spell things logically, like they are pronounced. This will make learning to speak, read, and write the language quicker and more efficient.
And while we’re at it, make other things a little more logical, too. Why is half of a pair of dice called a die, when half of a pair of mice is called a mouse? Shouldn’t it be a mie? Or a douse? If we have goose and geese, then why don’t we have moose and meese?
But realistically, languages like French, Spanish, and German have something around 75,000 or 100,000 words. English has over a million. Many of these words have been brought in from foreign languages without altering the spelling, so you have to know the rules for pronunciation in those languages – coup d’etat, for example. Coo day tah, not coop dee etat. French tends to drop all of those messy consonants at the end of words. (Then why the hell do they put them on there?)
Let’s clean up all of these foreign words – spell them phonetically. Orderves. Flambo. Core. That last one would change the name to Marine Core, which looks kind of funny to me, but I am willing to get used to it. It would prevent morons from pronouncing the “ps”, thereby calling it “Marine Corpse”. Look, dickweed, a Marine corpse is a dead Marine. It’s pronounced “core”, you illiterate moron.
Although, for sheer number of awkwardly-spelled words, the English have to take the blame. What blighter would use four or five letters when seven or eight will do? Draught – pronounced draw-git? No, it’s draft. Neighbor – pronounced neef-bor, since the gh in draught has an “f” sound? No, they put in the gh here and then don’t even use it. Through = thru. Photo = foto. Phone = fone. Where the hell are all of these extra letters coming from? Let’s chop those down and spell things like they sound.
And we have “q”. We never use “q” without also using “u”, so the “u” is redundant. It doesn’t modify the way that “q” is pronounced. Stop using a “u” after every “q”! Or get rid of q entirely and replace it with kw. kween, kwarter, kwiet, sekwence, subsekwent.
Another one like this is “ck”. Flick, lick, wick, nick. What possible function or benefit does the “c” provide? Is the word pronounced any differently without the “c”? Flik, lik, wik, nik. No difference. “X” always has to have an e before it (in x-ray, the “x” is a letter rather than a syllable – like the “m” in M-16) – expert, extra, exception. Why? Drop the e! That or replace x with eks. Hmm. The Eks-Files?
Even the same groups of letters are not used consistently. How come bomb, comb, and tomb don’t ryhme? The “o” has a different sound in every word – bah, coh, too. How come too, to, and two do rhyme? They should be too (rhymes with “who”), tow, and two (pronounce the “w” and pronounce the “o” like it rhymes with tow). There are so many exceptions in English that you wonder why they thought there was even enough of a trend to make a rule in the first place. “I before e except --” NO! No exceptions! Bad teacher! Bad! Just spell it one way!
Besides letters at the end of words that are unused, we have letters at the front of words that are unused. Pronounce the “g” in “gnat” or “gnu”. Or the “p” in “pneumatic” or “psychology”. Do we really, really need these letters in these words? Is there another word that is so close to “pneumatic” that we just have to have the “p” there to distinguish between the two?
Many English words end in tion, pronounced shun, like pollution, revolution, petition. Where is the sh in these words? Ti does not equal sh, folks. Ti equals titanium. Oops, wrong class. This is English. Never mind.
Hell, if we want to play around with it, we can come up with some alternate spellings for “fish”:
“phoche” (PHoto wOmen quiCHE)
“ghoti” (enouGH sYstem polluTIon)
“phyche” (PHone sYnonym quiCHE)
Or “potato”:
“ghoughpteighbteau” (hiccouGH thOUGH PTomaine nEIGHbor deBT burEAU)
Let’s overhaul the whole freaking system. Spell things logically, like they are pronounced. This will make learning to speak, read, and write the language quicker and more efficient.
And while we’re at it, make other things a little more logical, too. Why is half of a pair of dice called a die, when half of a pair of mice is called a mouse? Shouldn’t it be a mie? Or a douse? If we have goose and geese, then why don’t we have moose and meese?