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>Trying to explain to a child why a certain word is pronounced the way it is, even though it looks nothing like how we are pronouncing it, usually falls back to
by morningseagulls 7y ago
>Trying to explain to a child why a certain word is pronounced the way it is, even though it looks nothing like how we are pronouncing it, usually falls back to "that's just the way it is" unless I want to try explaining to them the niceties of Old French/Latin, Old English, Old Germanic, the great vowel shift, etc.
I want an ELI5 about this, please. I'm sure there's room for swords, dragons and secret treasure maps somewhere in that story. :)
- Xophmeister 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English
- dagw 7y agoGive https://slate.com/podcasts/lexicon-valley https://slate.com/podcasts/lexicon-valley a listen
- rmah 7y agoNot the OP, but consider the following... Of course, you know of odd plurals such as house -> houses vs mouse -> mice. why is womb pronounced "woom" and tomb "toom" but bomb is not "boom"? gh: tough and laugh (as f) vs thigh (silent) vs ghost (hard g) Why is tear (crying) pronounced the same as tier (levels) but spelled differently when tear (ripping) spelled the same as tear (crying) but pronounced differently? The list of weird English oddities just go on and on. English is just plain weird.
- morningseagulls 7y agoThanks for the list of oddities, all of which I'm aware, but I was hoping OP could work on an explanation.