English is a nutty language

[Alex Franke]

-ough. How on Earth am I supposed to teach this kind of stuff to my three year old? Seems like English is more exception than rule. (Granted, there are some other languages represented here.)

Though the cough, hough and hiccough so unsought would plough me through,
Enough that I o'er life's dark lough my thorough course pursue. [Stuart Kidd]

And I find this really amazing: (From small_heaven at fropper.com)

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the only iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit plcae.

the rset can be a total mses and you can sitil raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid does not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. [sic]

[leehljp]

Yep, English is a nutty language. All languages have their exceptions and each one has the exceptions in different areas. Some in the spellings, some in pronunciations, some in verb tenses.

Japanese is a much tougher language, but the pronunciation and spelling are much more sensible. That is the only easy part of Japanese!

One humorous anomaly that I find in Japanese and English translation is the word cone as in ice cream cone. Translated into Japanese, they say "cone" just like we do, but the spelling in their alphabetical language is the same as "cone" sounds to English speakers. However, the "o" sound in this instance is written the same as an almost silent "R". The result is that when the Japanese write "Cone" back into the Romanized alphabetical system, they write "CORN!"

Been to several ice cream places here and seen the word "Corn" written for "cone." Would you like and Ice Cream Corn?

[gsmittle]

The second one looks like many of my student's research papers!

No, I'm not kidding!

g.

[jspelbring]

English is tough stuff

English is Tough Stuff

We've all cursed written English as capricious and sentenced American Pronunciation Rules as but half-truths at best. Examples and practice always seem better than studying worn and obsolete phonetic guides.
Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.
(Read aloud, with a friend!)
(After all, laughter is the true universal language!)

The Chaos

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.
Feoffer 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!!!


Written by Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946), a Dutch observer of English.

[ironhat]

O.T. but related... sort of.

<snip>
However, the "o" sound in this instance is written the same as an almost silent "R". The result is that when the Japanese write "Cone" back into the Romanized alphabetical system, they write "CORN!"

Been to several ice cream places here and seen the word "Corn" written for "cone." Would you like and Ice Cream Corn?

My son-in-law returned from a two year mission in Thailand and told us how the Thais eat corn as a desert. They are most excited when it is still on the cob. But, then again, so am I. Cultural differences are interesting. OK, continue with the topic.

[sparkeyjames]

Buffalo

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Possibly the weirdest sentence in the English language is: “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”.

It takes a bit to understand this, so let’s build up from simple stuff. First, suppose that dogs chase cats, who then chase mice. Another way of saying this is:

“Cats that dogs chase, chase mice”

But the comma and the word “that” aren’t technically needed, so we can say:

“Cats dogs chase chase mice”.

But cats also chase other cats, so we could say:

“Cats dogs chase chase cats”.

And they can be chased by other cats too:

“Cats cats chase chase cats”.

Step back and look at this sentence for a moment. This is the basic structure of the buffalo sentence. Let’s think about buffalo chasing other buffalo:

“Buffalo buffalo chase chase buffalo”.

Now there’s a lesser-known English verb “to buffalo” meaning “to push around”. So instead of chasing, let’s make these buffalo push each other around:

“Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo”.

Remember that this means:

“Buffalo that buffalo push around, push buffalo around”.

For the final step, let’s just talk about a particular kind of buffalo - the kind that live in the zoo in Buffalo, New York. These, of course, are Buffalo buffalo - just as the lions are Buffalo lions.

“Buffalo buffalo that Buffalo Buffalo push around, push Buffalo buffalo around”

or more properly:

“Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”.

For extra credit, here’s a sentence with “and” five times together:

“When you drew that Fish-And-Chips sign, you should have put a hyphen between Fish and And and And and Chips”.

[pierhogunn]

I surrender, now knock it off