cat brains are so small but they fit so much bastard into them
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i understand the historical reasons why English is the most common language
but if I was writing a speculative fiction novel
and I said “the language that most people learn as a second language, usually for professional reasons, is also the only one with a spelling system so terrible that spelling words correctly is a broadcasted competition”
you’d be like “extremely unrealistic 0/10”
i never thought of this, do other languages not have spelling bees?
What
Isn’t spelling in english like… easy? Aren’t all the letters in the word usually there for a reason, unlike some other languages? (looking at you, french)
That is a logical thought, but very wrong.
For one, there’s a whole lot of silent letters in the English language that you could just… trash and the words would still phonetically sound the same. Wrong and rong, you don’t pronounce the w. Salmon, samon. Comb is prounced com (not come, coom, a long o sound)
Then there’s the fun thing like the ffffff sound that spelled either f, ph, or ff. For example, pharaoh, falcon, and staff all have the same ‘ffff’ sound but they’re all spelled differently.
The English language is like if the German language and the French language got a little drunk and had babies, but had a Spanish nanny.