Speaking 'properly' & the French
justcarol67
justcarol67 at yahoo.com
Mon May 2 05:43:36 UTC 2005
bboyminn wrote:
>
> I hate to trash the French and their language, but I've never seen
> another language where words are pronounce so differently than they
> are spelled. What is the purpose of all those letters in a word if not
> to lend a clue as to how the word is pronounced?
><snip>
Carol responds:
I don't know enough about French to discuss it intelligently, but
English isn't exactly spelled as its pronounced, either. How do you
pronounce -ough? As in bough, though, thought, through, or enough?
I'm sure there's some etymological excuse for those spellings, as
there is for all the words we borrowed from Greek (psychology,
pneumonia, diarrhea) or the retained "k" in "knight" to reflect Old
English "cnicht," but I don't know what it is and I don't think it
would help the third graders having to learn those words as "sight
words" because they can't be sounded out. "Sight" is another example.
You have "sight," "site," and "cite." As an editor, I can tell you
that a lot of people have trouble keeping those three words straight.
Not arguing with you, just stating that English is nearly as difficult
to spell, probably thanks to the eighteenth-century lexicographers who
were so concerned to preserve the etymology in the spelling
Carol
More information about the HPFGU-OTChatter
archive