Really, English is sort of a patchwork quilt. English spelling starts making sense if you also know the spelling of several of the source languages it borrowed

Really, English is sort of a patchwork quilt. English spelling starts making sense if you also know the spelling of several of the source languages it borrowed from. French especially important; Latin and Greek via french IIRC; and maybe German and Dutch or so for the Saxon side of things. The confusion happens when (Anglo)-Saxon, French, and Greek words all happen to collide. Or I would say that, but then I looked at one of the first given examples: Corpse and Corps, not actually from two different languages. Actually borrowed from Latin "corpus" (body) via french twice . [1] You still get quite a bit of traction if you know those other languages, but ... that one is particularly bad! See also: Ghoti (Supposedly can validly be pronounced "Fish") * "Gh" = /f/ (laugh) : A sound that doesn't exist in english anymore, but does in german" "Lach", which is pronounced roughly the same as in old english). Or, if you want a word you might recognize: "Loch", which is the Scottish Gaelic word for Lake. * "O" = /ɪ/ (women) : Actually english, from the great vowel shift I think? * "Ti" = /ʃ/ (nation) : Nation is actually a french word, borrowed wholesale including the original spelling. [2] [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/corpse https://www.etymonline.com/word/corpse [2] The story might be more involved, but this post is getting long.