The English Language


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I am starting this thread as a receptacle for items concerning our language (keep it clean!). The English language is populated with spelling, grammar, idioms, etc, that hardly make sense, and yet we say and write them without query. Take the example of the name Loughborough, mentioned in a recent posting; it has that awkward combination of letters spelling 'ough'. It has them twice, both phonetically different from the other.

I have heard that during the war, when they arrested German Fifth Columnists, who obviously spoke decent English, MI.5 or whoever, would ask them to read a sentence that had a number of examples of words with ough in their spelling, all pronounced differently. Virtually guaranteed, I would have thought, to catch-out the spy.

By my reckoning there are eight different ways of pronouncing ough - tell me if you know of another. These are, with examples of words, preceded by their phonetic sound:

OU - bough, Slough

OH - though, dough

OO - through

OFF - trough, cough, Gough

OR - ought, fought, nought

UFF - rough, tough, slough, enough, Hough

ER - thorough, borough

OCK - lough

So, the spy might have been given the sentence 'A man named Gough, from Slough, fought off a thoroughly rough cough through eating too much dough whilst sitting beside a lough'.

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There have been several topics recently, whereby mention has been made regarding the correct use of the English language, especially punctuation which certainly gets people baffled at times. I mentio

Yes, it's good when people's posts are spelt correctly but if they aren't then I couldn't care less. I'm more interested in what they have to say than if they've missed an apostrophe off or misspelt a

Why is everyone going on about grammar?  I suspect that  it's often predictive text or twitchy fingers that cause any mistakes on here anyway.   As long as the.post  is clear and unambiguous,  does it

My French penfriend came to my wedding from Scotland where she was at uni. She came by train and nearly missed the stop as she was expecting to get off at Lykester .

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Words such as wind & row and there are many others can be pronounced in different way depending what words are placed before or after them.

There are not always hard and fast rules & I think that is why English is a difficult language to learn.

Then there are words such as tong & tongue: there & their: Two,too & to: which are pronounced the same but are two entirely different things.

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Lough is Irish for lake, and is in the Oxford Pocket Dictionary. I believe it is also Scottish for loch. I say this because the two Loughead brothers went to America and foundered an aircraft company. Because the Americans could not come to terms with the name being pronounced Lockheed, the brothers renamed themselves to the phonetic pronunciation.

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After returning from a Forest away game , a mate of mine had had a lot to drink . It was dark and the windows were wet and steamy.

He wiped a bit of window and said that he was getting off at Attenborough. There was a long time before the next stop where I alighted at Beeston. Next match, he told me he'd only seen ough and wrongly got off at Loughborough, where he had to spend the night. LOL

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Many years ago I was in Nottingham when a car pulled up and the passenger asked how bto get to "Looboroo" in an obviously US accent. Ever since then Loughborough has become Looboroo for me.

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I found the article below earlier this year and decided to save it. Sorry about the length of it.

You think English is easy?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture..
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

The heir with red hair from Ayr read about a hare in the air

There must be a way to weigh whey
The bus tour tore up the tor
He only paid a cent for the cent he sent
The bird with the ‘flu flew up the flue

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Weather, wether, (a male goat without his nuts,) and whether.

 

Wheel and weal..

But remember, there are many words that have had their spelling changed over the centuries, it's not just Americans who change the spellings!! Take coal, the old spelling was used as late as the 1920's, cole. So how did it get changed from cole to coal???

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I also think that these days too many people rely on the spellchecker which as we all know is not perfect as the rhyme below (not mine) shows.

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It chose me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye kin put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

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I see spelling like that on FB every day....LOL

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Shewn is the old spelling of shown, no idea when that one came to be shown, but might it have been shewn during Victoria's reign??

 

Just did some quick research and it appears "shew/shewn" was still in common use into the early 1940's.

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My French wife is and international lawyer she speeks and writes 7 languages and says English is an easy language to learn,

I had no problem learning English, but French that I found hard

I was going to write the conjugation for Go in French but it would take up a full page so I have put a link http://leconjugueur.lefigaro.fr/conjugaison/verbe/aller.html

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There used to be a small shop in Sherwood selling stationery but above the window they had the word stationary!

Now I know people get confused about the spelling but I'd have thought as a shop they would have had someone to check it out.

At the bottom of Sherwood Rise there's a business selling tyres for cars. In one on the windows they have the word punture repairs but on another one they have it as puncture - correct!

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Just did some quick research and it appears "shew/shewn" was still in common use into the early 1940's.

I was a junior member of the Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club in the 1950's, The membership card said "Must be shewn at the gate on entry".

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Interestingly, all those ough pronunciations all have words with similar pronunciations spelt differently. Such as Rough and Ruff, And what about the augh. As in caught and draught. And other words like Hart and heart. I love the English language. I have read books about its origins and how so many words mean much the same thing but in different context. It is so sad to hear words misused. I crige when I hear the misuse of the word 'like'.

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