101–110 of 112 posts
A good description Another amusing one is Mark Twain's plan: A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped to be replased either by “k” or “s”, and likewise “x” would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which “c” would be retained would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform “w” spelling,…
A good description Another amusing one is Mark Twain's plan: A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped to be replased either by “k” or “s”, and likewise “x” would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which “c” would be retained would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform “w” spelling,…
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Not only is hiccough old, it's also new... at least compared to hiccup. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hiccough > Hiccough is a later spelling, and an example of folk etymology. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hiccup#English > Alternative forms > hiccough (old-fashioned, hypercorrection) ...and see the etymology for more info.
Interesting, I’ve never seen that word spelt as ‘hiccough’ (native English speaker here). Do some people really claim that fake spelling is the correct one?
An archive.org search found plenty of texts from that era using hiccough, though often with some hiccups as well.
This one from 1886 is interesting: https://archive.org/details/b21699331/page/n1/mode/2up?q=hic...
> No doubt many of my professional brethren are well acquainted with the Hippocratic aphorism "Sneezing occurring after hiccough removes the hiccough,” or, as it is rendered by Adams, “Sneezing coming on, in the case of a person afflicted with hiccup, removes the hiccup.”
The 1886 author uses hiccough while quoting the older Adams reference, from 1849, as using hiccup (primary reference for Adams is at https://archive.org/details/genuineworksofhi02hippuoft/page/... )
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Have a look at Interlingua, it would make a great official language for the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua Same article written in Interlingua: https://ia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlingua
Way better than Esperanto at first glance
It's essentially a modern, cleaned-up Latin that any European can pick up quickly.
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That's the current situation because spelling reflects pronunciation as it was hundreds of years ago. Basically spoken language moved on, but orthography remained fixed. In languages that standardized their spelling later, or implemented large scale spelling reforms, the discrepancy is smaller. But English is so spread out now with no central authority, so for sake of compatibility, it won't really be reformed now.
People always seem to forget that English isn't one language, it is composed of vocabularies from multiple languages all used together. Quite a few words that people think of as English are taken from languages far away, such as shampoo, pyjamas, bungalow. If people want English to have a stronger connection between spelling and pronunciation they can simply go for it, there is no authority that tells you how you mus…
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That's the current situation because spelling reflects pronunciation as it was hundreds of years ago. Basically spoken language moved on, but orthography remained fixed. In languages that standardized their spelling later, or implemented large scale spelling reforms, the discrepancy is smaller. But English is so spread out now with no central authority, so for sake of compatibility, it won't really be reformed now.
> the discrepancy is smaller. You mean like the French who don't pronounce the final consonant? Anyway, fixing the orthography simply privileges the group whose pronunciation matches. And the pronunciation continues to drift anyway so you have to keep on adjusting the spelling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the current situation because spelling reflects pronunciation as it was hundreds of years ago. Basically spoken language moved on, but orthography remained fixed. In languages that standardized their spelling later, or implemented large scale spelling reforms, the discrepancy is smaller. But English is so spread out now with no central authority, so for sake of compatibility, it won't really be reformed now.
Now GB has left the EU, maybe Europe should create an “international written English”? It’s kinda a joke, but would be kinda cool. They’d only have to negotiate with Ireland, so hopefully wouldn’t get too bogged down.
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Your teacher might have overlooked the simple fact that English has taken the planet by storm. That's how hard it is. It's not the superficial, shower-thought ideas that determine the practical ease of use, and they shouldn't be used to guide linguistic changes.
A language taking over usage has little to do with its qualities, but rather with the cultural domination practiced by its native speakers. English has some notably easy parts and some notably difficult parts. It's a language with remarkably simple grammar, but the orthography is notorious (see OP) as well as the very large vocabulary makes it difficult to master (although of course a high ceiling in a language isn't…
All languages of highly developed cultures are equally complex, but English is definitely one that gives new learners a leg up. Its orthography is inconsistent, but we don't read through phonetic transcription. Chinese, OTOH, makes the start as a second language difficult, in all aspects.