4 ms·

>What even is irregular about English? I'm guessing it comes both the inconsistent pronunciation and irregular verbs. People then assume non-English languages

by jasode 9y ago

>What even is irregular about English? I'm guessing it comes both the inconsistent pronunciation and irregular verbs. People then assume non-English languages have more consistency and regularity. It's a non-rigorous intuition that English is messier than every other language. There are several poems that poke fun at it. It would be interesting to see equivalent "meta" poems about Russian, Spanish, etc. (1) irregular pronunciation: http://www.wordhord.com/humor/english-pronunciation-poems/ http://www.wordhord.com/humor/english-pronunciation-poems/ (2) irregular verb tenses: Tense Times With Verbs by Richard Lederer[1] The verbs in English are a fright. How can we learn to read and write? Today we speak, but first we spoke; Some faucets leak, but never loke. Today we write, but first we wrote; We bite our tongues, but never bote. Each day I teach, for years I taught, And preachers preach, but never praught. This tale I tell; this tale I told; I smell the flowers, but never smold. If knights still slay, as once they slew, Then do we play, as once we plew? If I still do as once I did, Then do cows moo, as they once mid? I love to win, and games I’ve won; I seldom sin, and never son. I hate to lose, and games I lost; I didn’t choose, and never chost. I love to sing, and songs I sang; I fling a ball, but never flang. I strike that ball, that ball I struck; This poem I like, but never luck. I take a break, a break I took; I bake a cake, but never book. I eat that cake, that cake I ate; I beat an egg, but never bate. I often swim, as I once swam; I skim some milk, but never skam. I fly a kite that I once flew; I tie a knot, but never tew. I see the truth, the truth I saw; I flee from falsehood, never flaw. I stand for truth, as I once stood; I land a fish, but never lood. About these verbs I sit and think. These verbs don’t fit. They seem to wink At me, who sat for years and thought Of verbs that never fat or wrought. [1] https://www.ncra.org/files/MCMS/2ED22AD5-E440-4ECB-B7B4-97011F0363AB.pdf https://www.ncra.org/files/MCMS/2ED22AD5-E440-4ECB-B7B4-9701...

umanwizard 9y ago
Calling the pronunciation irregular is putting the cart before the horse. The spoken language is the fundamental thing. It's the spelling that is irregular; the pronunciation just is what it is. Writing isn't the same thing as language. Language is an innate human activity; whereas writing is a piece of technology that some cultures use and others don't.
- jasode 9y ago
  >Calling the pronunciation irregular is putting the cart before the horse. Spelling sometimes precedes the pronunciation. That's why Detroit is not pronounced "day-twah" like the French would say it. Because English borrows so much from German, French, Latin, Greek, with some Scandinavian and native Indian thrown in, Americans often look at the spelling and derive an Americanized English pronunciation. Put another way, a lot of English sounds the way it does because of the way it is written. The spellings originated from different parent languages but the pronunciation did not tag along with it. This adds to the inconsistency. As far which causal direction (pronunciation->spelling vs spelling->pronunciation) has the higher quantity in English, I don't know. I agree that in the large scheme of evolution from apes to humans, spoken language is more fundamental and will come before writing.
  - umanwizard 9y ago
    It's true that writing can influence language (as can lots of other things). I wasn't claiming otherwise. The magnitude of each direction does not matter and is not related to the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make is: an inconsistency between writing and language, which are two different things, is not evidence of an internal inconsistency in the language. It is like saying the Linux syscall API is "irregular", because it is incompatible with the Windows one. The fact that "bough" and "trough" are spelled the same is not a fact about the English language so it doesn't prove anything about whether English is irregular or not. It is a fact about the writing system commonly used to represent English. Edit: with your comment about apes to humans, you make it sound as if writing was invented in some earlier stage of evolution (but after language). Actually this is not true. Writing was invented by biologically and behaviorally modern humans indistinguishable from you and me. It is still an optional part of the human experience and not used by all cultures. The complete opposite is true of [spoken] language.
    - jasode 9y ago
      >The fact that "bough" and "trough" are spelled the same is not a fact about the English language so it doesn't prove anything about whether English is irregular or not. It is a fact about the writing system commonly used to represent English. I understand your separation of concepts here. Let me try to go meta and explain what many people are talking about: umanwizard : English _aural_ is totally separate from English _visual_ ; in this division, "inconsistency" makes no sense; (English aural would be like Linux and English visual is like Windows) others: "English language" is _both_ the aural+visual together. The aural & visual evolved together and influenced each other. Therefore, inconsistencies _can_ be identified. It doesn't matter if there was an "English spoken" before "English writing". The context for many people saying "English is inconsistent/irregular" is to say that "English aural+visual is inconsistent". I'm not saying you must agree that "English language=aural+visual". I'm informing you that the combined unit is what they're talking about. The combined concept enables those meta poems to exist. It also means that when you tell a linguist that "English is inconsistent", the linguist knows what you're talking about. Likewise, when a linguist mentions that "English is inconsistent", _we_ know what he's talking about. >, you make it sound as if writing was invented in some earlier stage of evolution No, that wasn't my intention. Just repeating the commonly held assumption that vocal grunts and pointing fingers at objects to communicate happens before systematic writing.
pandaman 9y ago
People being amused by irregular verbs is, in my opinion, a sign of how much regularity there is in English. For an example of irregularity in Russian there is a short story by M. Zoschenko, "The fire iron" (Кочерга, М.Зощенко [1]). The plot of the story is about some office workers who are trying to write an order for five fire irons but don't know how to write "five fire irons" so they toss around ideas to order three and two in different orders or request "a fire iron, five items of" etc. It makes no sense in English, obviously, but in Russian the issue is that a noun, when used with quantity, has to be in different cases depending on the quantity and for quantity of 5 the case is genitive plural[2], which is rarely used naturally with "fire iron" so most people don't know how to make one. 1. http://fanread.ru/book/7894628/?page=1 http://fanread.ru/book/7894628/?page=1 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_declension#Numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_declension#Numerals

by jasode 9y ago

umanwizard 9y ago

Calling the pronunciation irregular is putting the cart before the horse. The spoken language is the fundamental thing. It's the spelling that is irregular; the pronunciation just is what it is. Writing isn't the same thing as language. Language is an innate human activity; whereas writing is a piece of technology that some cultures use and others don't.

jasode 9y ago
>Calling the pronunciation irregular is putting the cart before the horse. Spelling sometimes precedes the pronunciation. That's why Detroit is not pronounced "day-twah" like the French would say it. Because English borrows so much from German, French, Latin, Greek, with some Scandinavian and native Indian thrown in, Americans often look at the spelling and derive an Americanized English pronunciation. Put another way, a lot of English sounds the way it does because of the way it is written. The spellings originated from different parent languages but the pronunciation did not tag along with it. This adds to the inconsistency. As far which causal direction (pronunciation->spelling vs spelling->pronunciation) has the higher quantity in English, I don't know. I agree that in the large scheme of evolution from apes to humans, spoken language is more fundamental and will come before writing.
- umanwizard 9y ago
  It's true that writing can influence language (as can lots of other things). I wasn't claiming otherwise. The magnitude of each direction does not matter and is not related to the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make is: an inconsistency between writing and language, which are two different things, is not evidence of an internal inconsistency in the language. It is like saying the Linux syscall API is "irregular", because it is incompatible with the Windows one. The fact that "bough" and "trough" are spelled the same is not a fact about the English language so it doesn't prove anything about whether English is irregular or not. It is a fact about the writing system commonly used to represent English. Edit: with your comment about apes to humans, you make it sound as if writing was invented in some earlier stage of evolution (but after language). Actually this is not true. Writing was invented by biologically and behaviorally modern humans indistinguishable from you and me. It is still an optional part of the human experience and not used by all cultures. The complete opposite is true of [spoken] language.
  - jasode 9y ago
    >The fact that "bough" and "trough" are spelled the same is not a fact about the English language so it doesn't prove anything about whether English is irregular or not. It is a fact about the writing system commonly used to represent English. I understand your separation of concepts here. Let me try to go meta and explain what many people are talking about: umanwizard : English _aural_ is totally separate from English _visual_ ; in this division, "inconsistency" makes no sense; (English aural would be like Linux and English visual is like Windows) others: "English language" is _both_ the aural+visual together. The aural & visual evolved together and influenced each other. Therefore, inconsistencies _can_ be identified. It doesn't matter if there was an "English spoken" before "English writing". The context for many people saying "English is inconsistent/irregular" is to say that "English aural+visual is inconsistent". I'm not saying you must agree that "English language=aural+visual". I'm informing you that the combined unit is what they're talking about. The combined concept enables those meta poems to exist. It also means that when you tell a linguist that "English is inconsistent", the linguist knows what you're talking about. Likewise, when a linguist mentions that "English is inconsistent", _we_ know what he's talking about. >, you make it sound as if writing was invented in some earlier stage of evolution No, that wasn't my intention. Just repeating the commonly held assumption that vocal grunts and pointing fingers at objects to communicate happens before systematic writing.

pandaman 9y ago

People being amused by irregular verbs is, in my opinion, a sign of how much regularity there is in English. For an example of irregularity in Russian there is a short story by M. Zoschenko, "The fire iron" (Кочерга, М.Зощенко [1]). The plot of the story is about some office workers who are trying to write an order for five fire irons but don't know how to write "five fire irons" so they toss around ideas to order three and two in different orders or request "a fire iron, five items of" etc. It makes no sense in English, obviously, but in Russian the issue is that a noun, when used with quantity, has to be in different cases depending on the quantity and for quantity of 5 the case is genitive plural[2], which is rarely used naturally with "fire iron" so most people don't know how to make one. 1. http://fanread.ru/book/7894628/?page=1 http://fanread.ru/book/7894628/?page=1 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_declension#Numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_declension#Numerals