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Unrelated question, and not to pick on you if English isn't your first language - I'm always impressed by people who speak any multiple languages with any compe
by wk_end 5y ago
Unrelated question, and not to pick on you if English isn't your first language - I'm always impressed by people who speak any multiple languages with any competency:
I've seen people misspelling flu as "flue" a lot over the course of this pandemic. I thought maybe that it was a British spelling, or that it was the word in German or French or Russian or something and foreign language speakers were mistakenly using the same word in English based on the similarity, but I can't find a language where that's the case. What's up with that?
- asquabventured 5y agoInFLUEnza and the shortened version is pronounced like “blue” in English? Seems reasonable for a non-native speaker to infer it should be spelled with an e at the end.
- Izkata 5y agoThe syllables of "influenza" are "in-flu-en-za", that's probably why it became "flu" instead of "flue".
- elliekelly 5y agoI’m not the person you’re replying to but I’ve also been wondering the same. The best I can come up with is that “flue” is an actual word (like a chimney flue) and autocorrect doesn’t alert people to the error. Kind of like there, their, and they’re. In writing this comment though I’ve learned that my iPhone autocorrects flue to glue. Even when following the word chimney. So perhaps my pet theory is totally wrong.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoI'm just a bad speller, and don't check what I type. But English is my second language. Though I'm sure I would be terrible speller in my original language.