Although I'm bi lingual english is my first language it's the one I use day in day out in the USA. I was recalling a situation with a friend yesterday where I was sternly scolded by my wife for telling my then 6 year old son that " English is stupid"
Of course sons typically look up to fathers until about 13 or 14. So I still had his attention and was now implying that he did not need to learn to read because english was stupid. The nearly instant evil eye I received from his (step) mom was concerning. She explained to me that I cannot say that to him or he will simply quit making an effort to learn to read and write with proper grammar, or to spell properly.
But I defended my self (in error) that english is actually stupid. Take the letter C for example. What is the use of this ridiculous letter? It's either a S or a K, why bother with the C?
Or why in the world did people as intelligent as Americans who can land on the Moon come up with the silent P? Why are we adding letters we cannot hear? How about other insanity of silent letters, Isle, wrap, knit, wrinkle, listen, herb, castle, One that is fitting for this is dumb!
It's not just letters that cause this stupid language to be far more complicated then needed, it's the words spelled exactly the same that have a totally different meaning! Horn, mole, duck, Seal, yard, pound, jam, foot, light, and this list could go on for a long time!
For that matter is there any functional reason for the letter PH sounding like F? really....... can we confuse this any further? ......... Oh we certainly can, How about the lowly letter X, its almost as worthless as the C, Not even the geniuses at XEROX can figure this out, They managed to use this letter as both a Z and and X!
I never saw Porky pig sleeping in a cartoon with the Letter X streaming out of his pink snout. Yet it is pronounced as a Z much of the time. If the Lettering system is not bad enough the spelling rules can beat that hands down. " i before e except after C".......... Really? All the time...... NOT. That's weird...... oh wait, I guess that word is quite fitting for this rule eh!
Does the period go inside or outside the quotation marks? When quoting at the end of a sentence? ( Anyone care.) Who is a subject, Whom is an object...... really this matters anymore? what are we living in the 1600's UK?
Alright, thanks for listening. Sorry for the rant. As an American I'm okay with our national language being English and would fight to keep it that way...... Ha ha, easy for me to say now that I understand it!......... sort of.
(Did you find the five ( at least) grammar errors in this post? Ha Ha.... English is a funny language!)
