English Is Dumb

You just made me laugh like mad (the crazy mad, not the angry mad). HA! Just another little tidbit of English stupidity...words with multiple meanings. :laugh:

Blame the Anglo-saxons and franko-normans. We would be speaking french, but the Normans had to let Anglo-Saxons in the english court, because they were there first. Well the celts were technically there first, but I guess they didn't count. Don't forget to blame catholic priests too, since they did all the writing and poisoned our language with an alphabet and grammar. It doesn't end there either. It just keeps snowballing.

It's complicated because it's so old - it has evolved and changed and adapted over many centuries, and amalgamated several other language influences along the way. Languages are like living things, they constantly change, and no, they aren't easy or logical!

The Chaos
by G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
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).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
Thames, examining, combining
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.
From "desire": desirable--admirable from "admire."
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,
Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with "darky."
Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,
Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it."
But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime with hammer.
*****, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.
Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,
Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.
Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess--it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,
Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, *kitten*, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,
Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, 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, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rimes with "enough"
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of "cup."
My advice is--give it up!

English is the HARDEST language to learn. It's a fact.

I agree. I think that if you are American, you dont really realize how hard English is to learn until we take a foreign language, and even then we don't fully grasp it. Yet we Americans expect everyone in the world to know our language, nevermind that it makes very little sense to someone jsut learning it.

This whole thread is cracking me up. My husband, whose native language is not English, is a HORRIBLE English speller, and has a rant at least once a week about how the English language makes no sense.

I had a big debate with my eight year old on how to say cinnamon, she says it should be sinnamon with an s, if its a c then it should be pronounced kinnamon lol

I've have to agree with your daughter, its phonetic spelling is ˈsi-nə-mən

English is the HARDEST language to learn. It's a fact.

Say what? It's one of the easiest languages to learn, hence why it is one of the most common languages spoken across the world.

Yet they try to teach English by phonics here in the UK, it simply doesn't work. When the children question why certain letters are pronounced differently they are told "some words are just different and need to be learnt like that" um ok, pointless then.

Sweeping statement indeed: Did you never even take an hour to research basic linguistic anthropology! Shakes head and leaves the unenlightened to their fates....

try to learn hungarian, and then come back :laugh:

mission impossible :noway:

I did not realise how difficult English was until I learnt Spanish. Most European languages pronounce every letter in a word, that's just not the case with English.

Since then I have total respect for someone who has learnt English as a second language, as I know first hand how difficult that can be. )

I just don't understand why people whose first language is English, are always complaining about how hard it is.
English is my third language and I think it is piss easy. Especially compared to other languages.

English is the HARDEST language to learn. It's a fact.

I don't know where you get your "facts" from however as someone who at one point in life spoke 9 languages, I can assure you this is not the case.

But then again, English can be hard for some but Chinese could be hard for others. It is all relative

English is my second language.... really easy to learn

Really? What was your first language?