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The English features I hate so much that I actually learned their true names. (startrek.website)

submitted 2 weeks ago by MalikMuaddibSoong@startrek.website to c/linguistics_humor@sh.itjust.works

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_e

Cognitive dissonance on the more accurate name of “Ignored e”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronym_(linguistics)

Record a record? Convict a convict? What an annoying concept.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_leveling

At least irregular verbs are drifting away, that’s a pleasant surprise.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisyllabic_laxing

fotograffy > fuhtawgruhfee I’ll die on this hill

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[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 17 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

You know what bugs me the most?

island - with a fake etymological "s" that was never pronounced. Compare it with German "Eiland".
people - you got to borrow French "peuple", then change that "u" into "o" for cosmetic purposes.
chaos - because you got to plop an etymological "h", except conventionally the way to transcribe Greek /kʰ/→/χ/ is "kh" instead. But no, you need to disguise that /k/ as /tʃ/.
spamming a diacritic (apostrophe) to highlight elided sounds, but not using it to solve small orthographical quirks. It would solve the first two issues you're complaining about - compare "mate" (bro) with "yerba matë", "I record it" vs. "the recórd".

[/old man screams at the clouds rant]

[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

You're about twenty centuries too late on the χ thing. You're gonna need to go back and talk to the Romans.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

[kʰ] or [χ], both end as /k/ [kʰ] in English anyway. But it feels weird that people insist on that etymological ⟨ch⟩ as if "English got it from Latin" was more important than "it's ultimately from Greek".

[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

It'll be part of the great English spelling reform. Until then, it's going to be spelled the way we Romanized Greek in the 16th century.

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