[Closed] English spelling and grammar anomolies

English pronunciations of words is worse. I feel for folk trying to learn English, I really do.

(see a poem called The Chaos)

Tomb and womb are pronounced to rhyme with room. Why isn't bomb the same? Would make much more sense.

The worst thing about that sign is that Neighbour is spelt incorrectly, without the 'U'. Americanisms!

The kids I teach (English as 2nd/3rd language) rarely have problems with spelling (i before e or vice versa) or grammar (its/it's etc), but they do struggle with this stuff:

Practise and practice, I can never remember which is which (one being to do something professionally, like medicine, and one being to repeatedly to something to learn in, like play the guitar)

I’m always getting stick about the way I announce my five year space missions. And mistakenly so.

The worst thing about that sign is that Neighbour is spelt incorrectly, without the ‘U’. Americanisms!

But the sign is in America so it is spelt correctly.

Practise and practice, I can never remember which is which

One is a verb, the other a noun. The way I remember them is to compare with 'advice' and 'advise' which have the benefit of being pronounced differently. The c and the s work the same way.

Discrete and discreet anyone.

I just guess.

Edit: no I don't. the e's in Discrete are.

Just clicked that.

Practise and practice, I can never remember which is which (one being to do something professionally, like medicine, and one being to repeatedly to something to learn in, like play the guitar)

Someone once told me that 'ice' is a thing (a noun). So it makes sense that practice would be a noun too, like a medical practice (a place with doctors in), or your doctor's medical practice (meaning their career / way of working). It's a stupid way to remember it, but it's stuck. If the doctor hasn't quite mastered it yet, they might need to practise.

Or advice / advise as above.

They should both be pronounced like comb, nickjb. Headway Upper intermediate chapter... .

Wound as in up and wound as in Argh! My arm

Either or, errr ...

The "ice"/"ise" difference - there's also pairs like licence/license: You are licensed (verb) to hold a licence (noun).

I read somewhere that when "English" as it was then was being transcribed by the monks (they were basically the only people who could read and write at the time) there was no standard to work to and each monk essentially made up his own rules.

Why no U in Forty?

There's another one like that: ghoti, pronounced "fish".

gh as in tough
o as in women
ti as in station

Not me but I find Spanish colleagues always want to have everything past tense as "ed". I think Spanish has stricter rules around this. e.g If end turns to ended then keep is keeped and not kept...

I sang some Spanish students, "All I ever wanted, all I ever needed", I should never have done that.

Best close the door so the cyclist doesn't pass too close.
Perhaps we should start talking like toddlers, they learn some basic rules and stick to them (only to be told they're wrong).

It's anomalies. Sorry.

Tomb and womb are pronounced to rhyme with room. Why isn’t bomb the same?

You'd never know when it had gone off.

I sang

I should never have done that.

Ftfy

Is there any point in there being two spellings of effect and affect? I never know when to use the a one

Is there any point in there being two spellings of effect and affect? I never know when to use the a one

Again, two different uses:

Something causes an effect

Something affects something else.

There's one or two odd-balls just to confuse things, like: he effected an escape.

You’d never know when it had gone off.

💥 Well done that man! 👏🏻🎩
Weird is the one that usually catches me out, but my phone and tablet spellcheck dictionary has become so good at anticipating me, after ten years of learning it’s usually just small things that I miss by going a bit too fast and don’t tap the corrected version.
It’s a bit scary sometimes just how accurately it anticipates the next word.

The trio that many get wrong are: then; than; that.

The number of people who write: "A is better that B" or similar is astounding.

A recent one is people using myself as opposed to me. No idea why it started but I see it everywhere now. John and myself will be attending rather than John and I. Please pass on to myself and not on to me. Why people, why?

I’m guessing that there’s a bit of etymology on the pronunciation of ‘English’ words. Tomb & womb may be (I don’t know, perhaps someone can confirm or correct me there?) of Scandinavian origin, while bomb is from the french ‘la bombe’. I think. Maybe

I do know that the ‘common’ words in English are descended from the Germanic, whereas the ‘posh’ words are descended from the French, which of course was the language of our kings & queens and nobles from 1066 up until the end of the Hundred Years War

I like advise and advice, and ice, but in the end you practiSe Sport and that's how I remember.

Have we done this one yet?

This has always flummoxed me.

The problem with that sign, and that rule generally, is that it people only ever learn the first half. It's I before E except after C when the vowel sounds like 'EE'. The only exception on the board there is "Keith," the rest follow the rule.

Why people, why?

"Hypercorrection."

People are idiots.

Is there any point in there being two spellings of effect and affect?

Because they're entirely different words which happen to be spelt similarly?

This one irritates me because I have never in my life confused the two words up until recently where everyone else does. Now I have to stop and think. The Internet has made me stupider.

It’s anomalies.

The prosecution rests, m'lord.

Lawrence Fox or Laurence Fox?

It's PC gone mad.

[i]The problem with that sign, and that rule generally, is that it people only ever learn the first half. It’s I before E except after C when the vowel sounds like ‘EE’. The only exception on the board there is “Keith,” the rest follow the rule.[/i]

I agree, lets blame Keith

Also, mustn't forget the irregular verb

I have an independent mind. You are eccentric. He is round the twist.
I consider carefully. You struggle with complexity. She can’t make clinical decisions.
I made an understandable error. You didn’t know what to do. He was incompetent.
I have too much to do. You are very busy. He can’t cope.
I am assertive. You shout. She is a bully.
I am objective. You are unsupportive. He is unsympathetic.
I was held up in traffic. You are late. She should have left earlier.
I am careful. You are overly cautious. She is uncertain.
I am pacing myself. You are slow. She is lazy.
I have been wronged. You are upset. He is being emotional.
I am taking a stand. You are being unhelpful. He is obstructive.
I have an innovative plan. You have an unproven idea. She just wants it done her way.
I provide feedback. You point out mistakes. She criticises.
I Lead. You Direct. He Dictates.
I use clinical experience. You bend the rules. He won’t follow the guidelines!!
I am working flexibly. You are sloping off early. He has just gone missing.

I have an independent mind. You are eccentric. He is round the twist.
I consider carefully. You struggle with complexity. She can’t make clinical decisions.
I made an understandable error. You didn’t know what to do. He was incompetent.
I have too much to do. You are very busy. He can’t cope.
I am assertive. You shout. She is a bully.
I am objective. You are unsupportive. He is unsympathetic.
I was held up in traffic. You are late. She should have left earlier.
I am careful. You are overly cautious. She is uncertain.
I am pacing myself. You are slow. She is lazy.
I have been wronged. You are upset. He is being emotional.
I am taking a stand. You are being unhelpful. He is obstructive.
I have an innovative plan. You have an unproven idea. She just wants it done her way.
I provide feedback. You point out mistakes. She criticises.
I Lead. You Direct. He Dictates.
I use clinical experience. You bend the rules. He won’t follow the guidelines!!
I am working flexibly. You are sloping off early. He has just gone missing.

I thought Holby City had been cancelled 🙂

Tomatoes, potatoes, mangoes, avocados.

Now, i know avocadoes is acceptable. But does it really?

Just thought of these:

independent and independant.

I never pick the right one - partly because I don't know when to use one over the other. (Heads off to find out)

Edit: turns out there's only one - independent, the other is a misspelling probably due to transcribing a mispronunciation, a bit like definately rather than definitely.

There can be only one...

*Anomolies*, c'mon, in the title!

Re. Independant - doesn’t help that the English unstressed schwa can take various forms in writing.
Where pron is super regular (eg Spanish) spelling become almost impossible to get wrong, apart from the silent H and a couple of other things, tildes in particular.

Take a disinterested view of this not uninteresting topic.

If you say ‘tuh-mayto’ it sounds weird.

If you say ‘puh-tayto’ it sounds ok.

Potato
Tomato

None of it makes any sense.

This morning in conversation I said ‘prehl-yood’ when I thought that I meant to pronounce it ‘pray-lewd’.

Americanizsation is my nemesis.

Unconscious and subconscious - I always thought "un" meant ko'ed, asleep, NOT-conscious. And "sub" meant in the mind, without thinking er, consciously about something... but I ALWAYS see unconscious being used for the latter. It annoys me as much as electrocuted used to, until I read it's meaning has now changed to just mean a shock, presumably because it's been used to mean that so much!

gaidong

*Anomolies*, c’mon, in the title!

assume and presume are often used incorrectly

To assume is to start from no prior information, to presume is to start from something you know already

A surprising number of people mix up I and me as in "My colleagues and me will be at the meeting."

I try to stay relaxed but this one really grates (was going to type "greats" but couldn't quite do it) on my ear. In threads like this you really have to watch the typos...

Americanizsation is my nemesis.

Stop you right there.

The US artificially butchered the language it's true, largely at the pen of Webster who was attempting to simplify things like colour > color. But the S/Z thing is actually the other way around, AmericaniZation would be the "correct" spelling, the Brits threw away the Z and the Americans kept it.

the Brits threw away the Z and the Americans kept it.

This has happened. Let it go.

A surprising number of people mix up I and me as in “My colleagues and me will be at the meeting.”

"Me and my colleagues..." probably sounds more natural but yes, you're right. The trick here if you're unsure is to drop the '... and...' clause and see if it still scans. "Me will be at the meeting."

Helping your Uncle Jack off his horse.

is different to

Helping your uncle jack off his horse.

“Me and my colleagues…” probably sounds more natural

Not to I.

Out of interest, do French folks ever confuse moi and je? That would feel wrongetty wrong.

I try to stay relaxed, but this one really grates upon my one's ears.

Or something

Americanisation is my nemesis.

Why are so many not-Americanz using "pissed" to mean "pissed off"?! - pissed means drunk! It really pisses me (off).
Sorry, Americanisms is (are?) a different thread ain't it (they).

En cas de doute, moi je mets les deux.

Helping your Uncle Jack off his horse.

is different to

Helping your uncle jack off his horse

but similar to

Helping your uncle, Jack, off his horse

And they're all wrong as you help someone from their horse.

One thing I refuse to say or write is 'aren't I?'

I am, am I, yeah, that tracks. I are, are I? Nope.

I'm going to get pelters for this, amn't I?

Americanisation is my nemesis.

Alot of americanisms are just older versions of English aren't they? like trace them back and you can find them both in usage and eventually the two languages branch off.

ise and ize for example are both perfectly acceptable in british english.

Language pedants are penisses's' who cares, celebrate the continued changement of the spoken word or we have to lose an awful lot of good ones.

If we're starting in on stuff people get wrong, then let's begin with:

Personal pronouns. When I'm King, (and as we all know, it's just a matter of time now) phrases such as "Will it just be yourself I'm making this booking for?" will be punishable with death by public hanging. It's the only way to be sure.

Americanisms that wind me up are the things like "Deplane". You mean "get off" presumably? "Bangs"..WTAF? It's a fringe, there's a word and everything, you don't need to press another word in to do the same job as the EXISTING word!

I think I realised long ago that I'm quite pedantic and it'd be better if I just let other people's errors and malapropisms slide, but incorrect uses of 'less' and 'fewer' absolutely grate on me.

Mrs Tyred just rolls her eyes at me when I bark "FEWER!" during conversation. Can't help it. Maybe she should make less mistakes eh!

I just don't understand why it doesn't feel COMPLETELY WRONG to people as they say it.

Americanisms that wind me up are the things like “Deplane”. You mean “get off” presumably?

My Uncle Jack is on the phone, he wants to meet up with you.

I can forgive a lot of Americanisms. Many are, as above, actually British English that just fell into disuse here, and a lot of others are innocuous. But the one that grips my shit is "momentarily," they've literally redefined the word.

"The plane will land momentarily." Well, crap, I'd better grab my rucksack and run for the door before it takes off again then.

incorrect uses of ‘less’ and ‘fewer’ absolutely grate on me.

At my local Sainsbury's there's a sign hanging from the ceiling denoting the "12 items or fewer" checkout. But the word 'fewer' is actually a patch on the sign. It gives me hope for the world that presumably at some point a pedant walked past it and went "less?" and Sainsbury's cared sufficiently to change it.

Possibly worth noting that English isn't a dead language, usages are changing over time and always have, I doubt most serious academics get strung up on correcting the common minor glitches. Anyone concerned with the Americanisation of the language, which is happening apace with more Americans and US-taught folks teaching English as a 2nd language around the world, should rest assured that the quickest way to devalue the language would be to insist on a proper version like what various Frenchies are trying to do.

"Can I get?" bugs me however. There's being incorrect and there's being obnoxious, and this is both.

incorrect uses of ‘less’ and ‘fewer’ absolutely grate on me.

...which is why I try to be relaxed about this stuff. It's prescriptive versus descriptive grammar. Where is mixing less and fewer ever going to impede comprehension? It isn't. They've always been used fairly interchangeably in colloquial language, regardless of interventions from Victorian grammarians.

On which, these days I always try to deliberately split infinitives, English not being a dialect of Latin. I still find this difficult to do, for some reason.

Off-topic sorry. There's a lot of misinformation about this but apparently it was a very near thing that the US didn't spend 250 years mangling the German language instead.

Hold on folks

I read somewhere that when “English” as it was then was being transcribed by the monks (they were basically the only people who could read and write at the time) there was no standard to work to and each monk essentially made up his own rules.

It doesn't go back that far, AFAIU. There wasn't any standard spelling until I think Johnson made the first dictionary. Even after literacy had become much more widespread people just spelled the way they were taught or if they'd never read a word before they just made it up. Which brings me on to

Potato
Tomato

None of it makes any sense.

These words are both imports from other language. The sound of the word defines the word, not the spelling. The spelling is merely an attempt to put it into letters. And there aren't enough letters to properly express all the sounds that we have in English. We could spell tomato like 'tomarto' but if someone from America, the West country or possibly Scotland were to read 'tomarto' it'd come out wrong. So it's actually pretty difficult to transcribe words when you don't have enough letters.

The US artificially butchered the language it’s true, largely at the pen of Webster who was attempting to simplify things like colour > color.

I don't think this is true - I suspect that like everyone else he just set down things the way he'd been spelling them. It just happened to be different to Johnson.

But the one that grips my shit is “momentarily,” they’ve literally redefined the word.

This happens ALL the time. Isn't it great? Or possible even awesome? There's an example where a word has actually come to mean its opposite, but I can't remember what the word is.

Alot of americanisms are just older versions of English aren’t they?

Some are, but also some Britishisms are older versions of Americanisms. They've just diverged, that's all - which is entirely reasonable.

the US didn’t spend 250 years mangling the German language instead.

They haven't been mangling English - it's just evolved slightly differently to how it has here. 250 years ago no-one in England spoke like we do now.

These words are both imports from other language.

Yes, Dothraki.

Alot

Not a real word. Stop it please.

Helping your Uncle Jack off his horse.

is different to

Helping your uncle jack off his horse

No it isn't. It's different from.

The practice/practise thing was once explained to me as "you can't see (C) a verb, you can C a noun". It works for me.

Americanisms that wind me up are the things like “Deplane”. You mean “get off” presumably?

Presumably they thought "alight" could cause panic.

At my local Sainsbury’s there’s a sign hanging from the ceiling denoting the “12 items or fewer” checkout. But the word ‘fewer’ is actually a patch on the sign. It gives me hope for the world that presumably at some point a pedant walked past it and went “less?” and Sainsbury’s cared sufficiently to change it.

It gives hope to those who are unnecessarily prescriptive. "Less" was used freely for count nouns until a single author's opinion somehow became a rule, and ignores all the exceptions in common usage, particularly for money, weights and measures.

More to the point, nobody is confused by the meaning of "ten items or less".

There wasn’t any standard spelling until I think Johnson made the first dictionary.

Johnson wasn't even consistent when he wrote the dictionary. retained (for example) the 'p' in receipt, but left it out of deceit (both from Latin, both should have had the 'p') he also used Uphill, but downhil , and he often just made stuff up as he went along and of course; famously as seen in the documentary series about Thickie George IV, didn't include the word Sausage.

I can never remember if it is “you can’t see (C) a verb, you can C a noun” or “you can’t see (C) a noun, you can C a verb”.

Fortunately I remember Practice and Practise and that helps me remember it correctly

Multiple meanings for the same word is also problematic

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/set

and

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fine

Spelling in Devon....

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Americanisms - people should be shot for using them, putting 'like' or 'out'  in a phrase when not needed & things like   'can I get' 'colorway' etc - morons!

Could of, would of.

Kill them before they breed.

Yes of and have are very confusing aren't they?

I like words with more than one meaning. For a short while I was in a band called "Fast"

When asked if it was because we played quickly I explained we just didn't eat
When asked if it was because we didn't eat I explained that it was because we were stuck and couldn't be moved
When ask if it was because we were stuck...

Well, you get the picture. I think that took longer to type than I was in the band 🙂