Go, English, Math

[TheBigH]

Colour comes after size. So does temperature, a hot small coal versus small hot coal. Similar to how me saying "I'm sure you're tall and big!" sounds pretty odd. (I've had to retype several examples because my fingers kept typing them in the correct order, to give you some sense of how ingrained this is in me! )

There are some inconsistent ones. For example, everyone would say "big stupid dog" but "stupid little dog".

[EdLee]

On the other hand, English is the only language in which the words go in the order that you think them

By "you" do you mean a native English speaker ?

For all the roughly 6,500 non-English spoken languages in the world,
with different word orders than English, how do you know in what word order
their respective native speakers think ?
( Maybe you're a linguist and know a lot more than us amateurs; if so, please enlighten us. )

[Dusk Eagle]

I'm sure hyperpape was just making a joke, hence the .

[EdLee]

Dusk Eagle, Thanks!

[topazg]

MJK, pronunciation isn't even consistent in English. Brass is pronounced as in hat or shaft depending on what part of the country you come from

"Spotted" is a tricky one, but I would classify it as a color or a material. It definitely cannot come before "big"

Of course, if you use the adjective "spotty", it could equally be a judgement and come before size

[SoDesuNe]

You can't miss these then:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

[daal]

Q: How is the word ghoti pronounced?

A:

fish. gh as in enough, o as in women, ti as in action.

[RobertJasiek]

In English, German and presumably many other languages, phonetics, spelling and grammar are hopelessly complicated. it should be as simple as an imperative programming language:) Language changes faster than language codification can keep up with it, and the result is endless complexity. For expressing a great variety of contents, degrees of truth, emotions or personality, a much simpler language would be possible:

He true 100 happy 100.

Why is natural language not so simple? Because everybody would exaggerate the extreme values 0 and 100. Complicated grammar has the advantage of allowing a great variety of nuances, without encouraging abuse of extrema.

This, however, does not answer why the relation between phonetics and spelling must be complicated. One phoneme, one spelling suffices, IMO. In German, this amounts to

Füür dii konnseekwännte Räächtschreieibreefoorm!

Für die konsequente Rechtschreibreform!

In favour of the consistent spelling reform!

[MJK]

This is impossible as who decides? Do we reform to American pronunciation? British? Indian? Irish? Do we have different spelling in every country? Which dialect gets to be the prestige dialect in each one? Etc.

There are plenty of ways to give changes to English spelling without having problems with the difference between various dialects. For example,

1. some, come, rough, buff, thorough, front → sum, cum, ruf, buf, thurro, frunt
2. women → wimmen
3. split 'bow' to 'bou' and 'bo'
4. generally apply the rule that 'short vowel in front of two consonants before another vowel, or one consonant at the end of the word; and long vowel in front of one consonant before another vowel, or one consanant before an 'e' at the end of the word' premise, economy, dictionary, mineral, cashew, saturate, year, contain → premmis, ecconnommi, dictionnarry, minnerral, casshoo, satchurrate, ere, contane
5. source, course, more, bore, pour → sors, cors, mor, bor, por
6. search, lurk, curtain, smirch, earn → serch, lerk, kertn, smerch, ern

There might be some more of these, but anyway I believe these changes would not have any problem with the diversity of English dialects.

Who dicides? I don't know. But I cannot understand why neither American nor British official organization such as the government has not ever announced a spelling reform since the 17th century or maybe before when the English spelling was actually different with today's. This is not normal with other languages that I am familiar with, for example, Korean, Japanese, German, Dutch, French; since their orthography was changed within last 50 years. Therefore, I can read what is written in those languages even though I mostly do not know what it means at all; while this may never be possible with English.

[MJK]

I studied physics in Holland from 1970. Colleges were in Dutch but the textbooks were English. I think that is the way it should be. I understand you are from the far east so welcome in "my" Amsterdam. Colleges in Dutch wont be very practical for you. If you need some advice from a dutch guy with some knowledge of universities, mathematics, go and amsterdam please let me know. English is a difficult language. I can speak it without thinking but I am sure I make many mistakes in grammar, idiom pronunciation and clumsiness. Even about the last sentence I am not sure wether I should replace "I" by "to". probably both are correct.

Check the website of UvA, there are some regular courses provided purely in English while this is the main reason why my Dutch sadly is not improving; I will try learing more Dutch, though. And I'm not sure what you meant by 'practical' but the collage in Dutch which I am in is practical, I believe, in some sense. Very thanks for your offer of help and agreeing with the difficultness, complicatedness, or probably messiness of English.

[RobertJasiek]

German [...] their orthography was changed within last 50 years

This reform was tiny, removed only the worst exceptions and introduced a few new problems. A reform in 1876/1901

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_R ... ahrhundert

had more impact: Thür und Thor were simplified to Tür und Tor.

[Boidhre]

This is impossible as who decides? Do we reform to American pronunciation? British? Indian? Irish? Do we have different spelling in every country? Which dialect gets to be the prestige dialect in each one? Etc.

There are plenty of ways to give changes to English spelling without having problems with the difference between various dialects. For example,

1. some, come, rough, buff, thorough, front → sum, cum, ruf, buf, thurro, frunt
2. women → wimmen
3. split 'bow' to 'bou' and 'bo'
4. generally apply the rule that 'short vowel in front of two consonants before another vowel, or one consonant at the end of the word; and long vowel in front of one consonant before another vowel, or one consanant before an 'e' at the end of the word' premise, economy, dictionary, mineral, cashew, saturate, year, contain → premmis, ecconnommi, dictionnarry, minnerral, casshoo, satchurrate, ere, contane
5. source, course, more, bore, pour → sors, cors, mor, bor, por
6. search, lurk, curtain, smirch, earn → serch, lerk, kertn, smerch, ern

There might be some more of these, but anyway I believe these changes would not have any problem with the diversity of English dialects.

Who dicides? I don't know. But I cannot understand why neither American nor British official organization such as the government has not ever announced a spelling reform since the 17th century or maybe before when the English spelling was actually different with today's. This is not normal with other languages that I am familiar with, for example, Korean, Japanese, German, Dutch, French; since their orthography was changed within last 50 years. Therefore, I can read what is written in those languages even though I mostly do not know what it means at all; while this may never be possible with English.

Individual letters don't have consistent pronounciations in English. "bo" I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a short or long "o" for example. Honestly, I'm sorry but you don't appreciate the complexity of the situation here. Most of your replacements there wouldn't sound anything like what you think they'll sound like if someone from my dialect said them.

[MJK]

Individual letters don't have consistent pronounciations in English. "bo" I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a short or long "o" for example. Honestly, I'm sorry but you don't appreciate the complexity of the situation here. Most of your replacements there wouldn't sound anything like what you think they'll sound like if someone from my dialect said them.

Pleez giv me sum exampls too support yor oppinnion. I am nou riting in a way that I think hou the regguler way ov Ingglish spelling wuud be. Even if such chainjis in orthographi wuud not mach wel with a perticculer Irish dyalect, I certnli beleev that this wuud be mor fine and regguler than uzing the cerrent Ingglish spelling in yor dyalect. No spelling reform ov a nachral human langguij can perfectli mach with all ov its dyalects. Thare was(pronounced either 'wuz' or 'woz') allwayz a standerd dyalect or dyalects to allso provide standerd spelling when spelling reforms occerred in other languijjis. The accents in Ammerican and Brittish TV programs werk fine as standerds in Ingglish, and it iz not hard to provide a regguler spelling sistem too werk fine in theze all.

[emeraldemon]

Something I've wondered before: is English the only language with national spelling competitions? The words they choose for those are a bit silly, but it does underline the vast complicated mess of English spelling.

[MJK]

Vote Yes Scotland 2014 wrote:
5/30/2013 11:57 PM

I have a spelling checker.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when I rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.