english language is dum

[Grahm]

#3. English Pronunciation Is Full of Ambiguous Rules

How would you pronounce the word "ghoti"? Did you say something like "goaty"? Like some kind of adjective describing an action performed in the manner of a goat?

Goaty: [adj] (-ier, -iest) 1. In the manner of a goat 2. In a manner that ruins everything. 3. While endlessly pooping a series of pellet-like turds, ruining everything.


But did you consider that "ghoti" could also be pronounced basically the same as "fish"? For example, if we:
Pronounce the "gh" the same as we do when we pronounce it in "tough"
Pronounce the "o" the same as we do when we pronounce it in "women"
Pronounce the "ti" the same as we do when we pronounce it in "nation"
If that seems contrived, try flipping the problem around. Look at an actual word, something like "scissors." Based on the way most people pronounce it, "scissors" has about 80 million valid spellings -- of which "scissors" is the most ridiculous.

You see, for every rule or guideline we have for how words are spelled or pronounced -- "'I' before 'E'" -- there are exceptions -- "except after 'C'" -- and exceptions to those exceptions -- "except in cases like 'weighing' your 'neighbor'." The rules can't be relied on at all, really, and spelling accurately becomes mostly a matter of experience, or more commonly, right-clicking red squiggly lines. When trying to spell a word, unless you've written it regularly and/or recently, you're shit out of luck without a dictionary. Even with one, you can get tripped up by homophones, real words that sound identical but mean different things -- see my "elicit"/"illicit" confusion.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-reasons-to-forgive-yourself-being-bad-speller/

[MaksimMazor]

Or if you go to school you can read/write correctly.

[Brain]

Yes and every science major will still wonder why the FUCK we haven't switched to the metric system...

However, part of the beauty of the English language is in the complexity. We have 5 words with similar (yet slightly different) meanings while most other languages only have 1 word.

If you are a native English speaker and have a decent foundation in education you will rarely need a dictionary when dealing with the basics such as elicit/ilicit, they're/there/their, principle/principal, its/it's, site/sights, etc... I just feel bad for the foreign speaker that starts learning english after their childhood.

I'm no expert on language, but aren't other languages (Arabic, Mandarin, Japonese) more difficult to learn than English?

[Ephirith]

Article doesn't make sense to me... so many people manage to have a command of the English language, in spite of all the subtleties and idiosyncrasies. And I'd be reluctant to call it something inherent about the way your brain works, because linguistic ability correlates very highly with the quality of your education and your upbringing.

I think if you're bad at English, then at some point you were:

1. Falling asleep in class or being a lazy ass.
2. Not a native speaker.
3. Raised in a household or community that didn't value educational attainment or intellectualism.
4. ur dum brah

[Reiker000]

You would never pronounce "ghoti" like "fish" since the reasons that those letters or combinations of letters make certain sounds (gh = f, ti = sh, etc.) are beyond just the fact that those letters are appearing in combination together. In other words, yes "ough" is pronounced like "uff" but that doesn't mean that gh = f.

Also, "ghoti" would sound more similar to goatee (only with the emphasis on the first syllable instead of the second) than goaty.

It's not just random bullshit, there's reasons and rules in language for a reason.

[Visual]

Comb
Tomb
Bomb

[theaetatus]

If that seems contrived, try flipping the problem around. Look at an actual word, something like "scissors." Based on the way most people pronounce it, "scissors" has about 80 million valid spellings -- of which "scissors" is the most ridiculous.


How is 'scissors' the most ridiculous? A silent 'c' in 'sci' is quite common, as in 'science', and the rest is pretty much phonetic.


You see, for every rule or guideline we have for how words are spelled or pronounced -- "'I' before 'E'" -- there are exceptions -- "except after 'C'" -- and exceptions to those exceptions -- "except in cases like 'weighing' your 'neighbor'." The rules can't be relied on at all, really, and spelling accurately becomes mostly a matter of experience, or more commonly, right-clicking red squiggly lines. When trying to spell a word, unless you've written it regularly and/or recently, you're shit out of luck without a dictionary. Even with one, you can get tripped up by homophones, real words that sound identical but mean different things -- see my "elicit"/"illicit" confusion.


The actual rule for 'ie' is, "If I and E together make the sound 'ee', then I before E except after C. Unfortunately lots of English teachers skip the first part.

Yeah, English vocabulary is tricky with so many words, but somehow people still manage to get 'their' and 'they're' mixed up despite this being obvious and very easy.

[Diggles]

I'm taking a fucking COLLEGE English class and I'm being praised for knowing how to use the correct "there" and "you're" and not splicing commas.

Fucking got a letter from the academic council that went over my midterm. I WROTE A PAPER IN 1 GODDAMNED HOUR AT 2 AM.

[Black Jesus]

i write floetry

[Reiker000]

I'm taking a fucking COLLEGE English class and I'm being praised for knowing how to use the correct "there" and "you're" and not splicing commas.

Well yeah, you live in Alaska.

[Hasbinlulz]

However, part of the beauty of the English language is in the complexity. We have 5 words with similar (yet slightly different) meanings while most other languages only have 1 word.

I'm no expert on language, but aren't other languages (Arabic, Mandarin, Japonese) more difficult to learn than English?
MERICUH!! FUCK YEAH!!
ARE LANGUICH IS SUPERIER!!

[Ahldagor]

mandarin chinese and english are the most difficult languages to learn. mandarin due to the phonetics of it and english due to the volume of words, specificity (danke Deutsch), and grammatical structures (gratias latinum).

[Hasbinlulz]

^dont forget borrowing words from every other language too.

[Heebo]

ghoti sings that song about that chick he used to know (bang), duh

[Ephirith]

MERICUH!! FUCK YEAH!!
ARE LANGUICH IS SUPERIER!!

Have you ever heard southeast asian languages? shit sounds like a cat having sex with a badger and they're both males and you're not even sure it's consensual.

Anyway, we make fun of the Italian language by going "boopity boppity, baba de bippity pizzaria?" Here's Italians doing the same thing to English:

<object width="480" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FcUi6UEQh00?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FcUi6UEQh00?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

OLL RAIGTH

[Hasbinlulz]

That makes no sense.

[Ahldagor]

^dont forget borrowing words from every other language too.

True. What's fucked is that the OED keeps adding words that don't need to be added. When was the last time bootyliscious was acceptable slang?

[Hasbinlulz]

Newspeak is doubleplusbetter than Oldspeak, comrade.

[kenzar]

That makes no sense.

The song was made to show a native english speaker what their language sounds like to someone who does not speak it.