Why are some words spelt peculiar, for instance why, in some words, is the sound "f" spelt as "ph", such as in "telephone", why wasn't it spelt as "telefone" from the beginning?

Then we have things like pneumonia - what's with the "p" at the beginning, why not just spell it "newmonia"?

Light could be lite as could nite, rite, flite and plite in fact anything with "ght" could be obsolete

I wonder who decided how words would be spelt in the beginning lol

There are numerous examples, I was just curious.

Because the English language is made up from so many different languages. Many words are Latin based, we have Old English, Norman, Saxon, then the Scandinavians invaded, besides the Gaelic languages, English is an amalgamation of many European languages. And let's not forget the French influence, too.

It's so nobody passes an English Lit, or Lang exam. Which hasn't been accomplished in over 700 years!

You are cynical (You are right though lol)

LOL! Smartypants

its because they want to make it so much more complicated for us...


another question...

if the english language is like that, then why do americans spell words differently?

as in, colour - british, and color - american?

it doesnt make any sense?
x

Hmm, I agree.

All the extra letters we have to stick in our words makes my hands get cramp

lol! i know what you mean...


theyre just there to make our hands exercise i suppose lol


x

haha... glad i'm indonesian language

Why are "slough", "enough", and "though" all pronounced completely differently?

Or why is it called underground in england and subway in america although it means the same thing?

It's the same thing with names. I know two guys, one named Stephen and one named Steven. But when Stephen shortens his name in writing he writes Steve.

It's like a weird kind of cheating I think.

And I know a girl who goes by Becky and one who goes by Becki... I mean what's up with that? In both cases their full names are both Rebecca.. so who added the freakin k? And for that matter who gave one of them an I and the other a Y?

I'm glad I have a normal name, it's Eduardo

but it's pronounced Tom

j/k

Ooooh that "ough" sound must drive people who are learning the English language nuts! lol

Hiccough doesn't even sound like hiccup!



Trough, bough, thought.... the list is endless hehe

Right, I'll have go at explaining this one, if my memory holds up. I do belive the discrepancies between English and American spelling stem from a certain Noah Webster [the guy who wrote Webster's Dictionary]. He went through every English word and re-spelt them all phonetically, eg color, flavor, and as far as elefant, coff, you get the idea. It happened that some caught on and the majority were forgotten about, and Webster doed a bitter man.

That's pretty much it if I remember correctly.

LMAO

About "ph" and "f": Both of these ultimately come from Greek roots. The Greeks didn't have a letter written letter 'f' but they did have a letter called 'phi'. Later alphabets included an 'f'; lots (but not all) words like that reflect the earlier, Greek spelling.

English also doesn't allow for words that begin with p + another consonant -- pneumonia, psychologist, etc -- but other languages does. French people pronounce it "puh-seek-o-lo-gee." Nobody knows why the language developed that way; it just did.

A long time ago, the letters "ght" like in light, night or fight represented a different sound -- the hard "echk" sound that is still present in German. Eventually, we just stopped using that sound in English but kept the spelling.

For several hundred years, there were no rules about spelling -- nor is there yet any ruling body that rules over spelling. That's why spelling is so weird.

"Ghoti": does anybody know another way to pronounce this common word?

--Jaylemurph

Thinking back, I just remembered something.

In the 1960s when I was in infant school just learning to read and write, they brought in an experiment which was called ITA reading and writing (anyone else remember such a thing in UK?).

What happened was this, everything was spelt phonetically, the word "money" for instance would have been spelt "Muney", then when every kid had the hang of this they progressed onto learning to spell, read and write the correct way! Sounds such as "th" in "think" had some sort of symbol to represent it and a different symbol was used for the "th" sound in words such as "there".

Stupid really as it meant a person just had to learn twice over lol. I guess that's why they abandoned it all in the end.

I remember I learned to read off of road signs. Lol

But I like words that should have a meaning. Like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis... a 45-letter word which refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of fine silica dust. Oh god. or


Floccinaucinihilipilification- "I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money" figure out that definition huh?

why would he do that?!

thats just mean lol

it makes more sense the way if was before, because you're saying it the way its actually spelt...

silly man! loll

x

Some of these words were pronounced differently a long time ago and the spellings match the older pronunciations. Here is a link where you can hear early medieval English:
http://eee.uci.edu/programs/medieval/oeclips.html