this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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I'm picking "Colonel" needs to be respelled to match how it's pronounced.

Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?

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[–] XEAL@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Oh boy, a word wouldn't be enough.

I would make English as consistent as Spanish is regarding phonetical consistency, or even more.

Oh, you have never seen this word ever before and you don't know how to pronounce it? No worries, these universal rules will allow you just get it right, because letters always sound the same!

[–] snowyday@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

“Spanish regarding phonetical consistency”

Checking in from Oaxaca

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 3 points 1 year ago

I dunno, Oaxaca seems pretty straightforward. oa is pronounced kinda like "ua", I guess, but midword x is usually a "hh" sound anyway so that's the only slightly weird thing.

[–] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fun fact, the Spanish X used to be pronounced like the Greek χ, which is why Meχico, Teχas and Oaχaca are pronounced the way they are now in English (formerly like a "kh" and now like a "ks")

[–] snowyday@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

To be honest, that was barely fun

[–] Ataraxia@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean knowing romance languages makes spelling in English easy. Also knowing something about Greek and Latin. Understanding the root of a word etc makes it a lot easier.

[–] DivergentHarmonics@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Right about spelling. For a non-native, it becomes somewhat difficult when it is about the "right" pronunciation of the written language. There's a lot of French influence for example. Now they have a lot of French words, some feel horribly mispronounced and some aren't. And then there's a lot of dialects so that mixing pronunciations can hardly be avoided.

[–] Zippy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

The only one they changed is the double l. ll to sounds like a y. But in some circles they consider that a seperate letter to the Spanish alphabet. Overall it is fairly consistent.

Even better, Spanish words are typically broken into two (or is it to or too) letter syllables.

[–] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

English is pretty good (generally) at doing the same thing.

Y'all are just bringing up words that English stole from other languages.

You can use phonetics to figure out how to pronounce most words in English.

[–] ericbomb@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

We just really wish when we stole them we changed the spelling to match the pronunciation if we wanted the pronunciation to stay the same of where we stole it from.

[–] ChrissieWF@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The amount of words that are not "stolen" from other languages is neglible..

Cat from German Katze, from Latin catta
Car(t) from German Karren
Kitchen grom German Küche
Bike/Bicycle from French bicycle
Leaf from German Laub
Beef, mutton, pigeon from French boeuf, mouton, pigeon
Cow, sheep, dove from German Kuh, Schaf, Taube
Computer from Latin computare
Sun and moon from German Sonne and Mond
Lunatic from Latina luna
Death from German Tod
Snug from Norse snøggr
Funny from Swedish fånig
Breeze from Spanish brisa
Ranch from Spanish rancha
Brave from Italian bravo
Arcade from Italian arcata
Dildo from Italian diletto
....

[–] mwalimu@baraza.africa 2 points 1 year ago

You may like this essay on why English has weird spellings. Think technological timings.

https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-the-english-spelling-system-so-weird-and-inconsistent

[–] mwalimu@baraza.africa 2 points 1 year ago

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

--James D. Nicoll