The illogicality of English language.

[garynortheast]

Choose and loose
but
chose and lose.

:scratch:

[Sir Trev]

Cut a tree down then cut it up...

[Sir Trev]

That's not an instruction by the way :D

[daktulos]

RobWords on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@RobWords) does some nice explanations why English words are like they are ... if you fancy losing a few hours. It interests me anyway ... did you know an apron was originally a napron?

[Ruffy]

It's probably a good job we all learnt to write/spell, otherwise we'd repeatedly be scratching heads dealing with differences like those of dew, due and jew, or sealing and ceiling, or base and bass

Not forgetting established favourites like their, there and they're - all these are arguably far more logical in written form than verbal/phonetic.

But talking about places like Leicester and Gloucester must have been easier before the written word! And it's probably less confusing to deal verbally with low frequency sound not being similarly heavy - bass with mass?:confused:

Variable pronunciation can also be a weird one - I sometimes used to - politely, of course - rib my Dad (who was raised in a different part of the country than me) that there was no "r" in bath: "It's not 'barth', Dad!" :smile:

Would it start a fight to ask the correct way to pronounce scone? (s-cone or scon - one of the oldest perpetual debates ever I suspect ;))

You're right, it's illogical. But probably wonderful at the same time.

[Sir Trev]

I love regional variations in vocabulary, pronunciation and language, especially if it confuses tourists.

How many different terms are there for bread rolls for a start? A good friend of mine (a teacher) moved to a school in Bristol and was confused to find them referred to as a batch. And that most of the pupils pronounced the place name as Brizzle.

[embee]

minute
second
pound
wind
bay
lean
fast

.... all mean what exactly?