c/linguistics · by iopq@lemmy.world · 1y

The cause of inconsistencies in English spelling

https://iopq.wordpress.com/2025/07/12/the-cause-of-inconsistencies-in-english-spelling/

I share some of my research about the reasons why English spelling is so inconsistent

26 points · 3 comments · view on lemmy.world

3 Comments

lvxferre@mander.xyz · 8 pts · 1y (1 reply)

[ removed ]

That's very cool, I didn't know about this one. Thankfully it doesn't add any stress reading (in fact it's to disambiguate words), only complicates writing.

Chinese has a rule where content sentences are minimum three characters. You'd never say 我好 "I'm good". At best you can drop the pronoun and say 很好 "pretty good" but the third character is implied.

klu9@piefed.social · 3 pts · 1y (1 reply)

Great overview!

One typo?

For example, any and many were spelled based on one dialect, but spelled based on another dialect instead of the also current spellings eny, meny.

I think one of those "spelled" should be "pronounced".

iopq@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y

Thanks, fixed