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!)

while not entirely disagreeing with you.....

what about the "c" in church?

Well, English does not require one to memorize silly irrelevant gender articles for every noun. There is but one article and it does not change depending on where it is in the sentence. Spelling aside, English is great. ;-{>8

Well at least we don't have genders for words like some languages.

The thing is many words have been adopted from other languages and their spelling was an attempt to be phonetic given the limitations of the letter in our alphabet.

English is, in fact, one of the more difficult languages to learn because of its many exceptions, quirks, and idioms. It is also one of the richest languages, with well over 600,000 recognized words - several times the number in other common languages. We have a range of words that describe very fine shades of meaning. For example: mad, angry, annoyed, piqued, furious, irate, cross, vexed, hostile, indignant, infuriated, incensed, raging, fuming, seething, livid, irked - plus idioms like hot under the collar and many more. All shades of meaning for one emotion - and in English we can select the one word of all those that portrays the exact level of anger we mean.

I'm monolingual. Not because I don't think other languages are good, but because I still haven't really REALLY learned this one yet. Give me another 70 years and I might get close.

I guess spanish makes more sense....ehhh hosehhh (Jose)

Regardless of the spelling issues, the English language is both very broad and very deep and provides a very large vocabulary compared to many other languages.

I would not trade English for any other language.

Steve

at this point, what effing difference does it make? laughing

I am fully convinced that everyone who speaks another language thinks in English and then has to translate it into their own language before saying anything.

As Rocky notes, the language is rich even if it contains more exceptions that actual rules, but I agree the spelling is ridiculous.

Bomb, tomb, comb.

Enough, dough, through, thought.

Done, run, cone.

Ate, wait, eight, height.

Spoon, hook.

Do not, don't.
Will not, won't - wth?

Why is "do I not?" contracted to don't I? We don't say "do not I?"

And many more.

We could get rid of several consonants and particularly vowel pairs that sometimes make a vowel long or not. Just put a macron over long vowels,ā as in ate. So ate would be spelled āt (and not eight or ait as in wait), at would be spelled at. Add a couple of letters to denote some particular consonant pair such as the sh or ch sounds.

The French and Spanish have academies or bodies that say what is proper in their language and what isn't (which doesn't stop some ridiculous spelling in French - want some or durves, I mean hors d'oeurves?), but that'll never happen in America.

ghoti = fish

'gh' as in enough
'o' as in women*
'ti' as in nation
................................

* There's another. A different sound for the 'o' in woman vs. women.

I am multi-lingual, but we need the "C." Otherwise we would never have Chevy.

If you don't like our language, go back to the Ukraine, Comrade.

What about German which has two different words for "you?" I had trouble figuring out when I had befriended someone enough to say "du" instead of "Sie."

Many of their words are combinations of several other words. For instance "metalwarenfabrik" means "metal working factory."

Yeah, Germans, like the French and Spanish, speak differently to close friends, children and underlings than to superiors or strangers. At least the French and Spanish separate the world into masculine and feminine. The Germans add a neuter gender with all kinds of resultant endings depending on what part of speech one is using - der, die, das; den, die, das; dem, der, dem (I think); however two or more of anything is always feminine.

One Spanish gentleman remarked that he liked coming to America because of our egalitarian way of addressing people - everyone was "you".

The Germans do have a pretty logical way of forming nouns even if it results in some long words. Like you said - Metalwarenfabrik tells you exactly what it is. A TV is a Fernseh - far see, a truck is a Kraftwagen - craft or work wagon, Luftwaffe means Air weapon, Flugzeug - fly thing, is a plane. Werkzeug - work thing, is a tool, Spielzeug - play thing, is a toy. We still use plaything ourselves.

I was talking to a PH in South Africa and he wanted to look through my binoculars but couldn't remember the English word so asked for my "far see lookers".


I'm kind of a language nerd if that wasn't obvious...

Jim, I was your PH if I recall? although maybe not for the whole trip? It's been too long you need to come back again!
That word is verkykers, or the Literal Afrikaans/English translation "far lookers"


Simon, I believe in order to go back to the Ukraine, one would have to have been from the Ukraine originally?
That's not applicable to me.

Nerd
Bird
Word
Curd

So do dogs drop Terds, Tirds, Tords, or Turds?????

der, die, das; den, die, das; dem, der, dem"

Der, die, das, die, dem, die das die dem der dem den. I think! LOL

Holy shades of High School german class! Over 40 years!

yes, you were my PH but there was you, Pieter and one other PH in our group, he was blonde, maybe 6' tall and I remember he had recently acquired a .505 Gibbs since he had almost been eaten by a leopard a short time before. I'm pretty sure he was an Afrikaner but may have been German. Anyway, he was the one who asked for the far see lookers, probably trying to come up with the most logical English combination of words. About how I would translate English into German when I didn't know the German word, I'd translate individual English words into one noun - like asking someone if they had a firething (cigarette lighter).

a cousin is head of linguistics at a major yankee university. I called him and asked his opinion about all this.
He laughed and said English is EASY compared to some others, like Hungarian, Basque, Tagalog or Navajo

Why do they call them "APARTments" when they're so close together?

Ja, Ich auch!

I was stationed in Germany (West Berlin) for some 2 1/2 years but rarely got to speak the language, almost all Germans spoke English better than I spoke German. I'd get into a cab and ask "bitte, fahren Sie, uh, rechts, uh, um die, uh, Ecke und dann, er, gerade aus..." and the driver would turn around and say very clearly, "you want to go right around the corner and then straight ahead, yes?" They'd rather communicate to me in their good English than listen to me butcher their language.

why they call them "Mormans" , shouldn't be "More Women" ?

Persian.

You mean woe to men?

I hear what you are saying, even if I don't know how you spelled it.

What I've always wondered about is when the Brits decided to quit pronouncing the R in anything, and why. There's a lot of words that get butchered by them but maybe since they originated the language it's their right. Probably why their so lieberal, too.

jorge,

Why is a Parkway a high speed road, and a driveway a place to park your car?

why Clinton and not Klinton ?

Persian

Why Clinton and not Inmate Number 367409?

Their, their...know knead to get a missed in your I's. Morning what sum right want make it moor plane.

She will be pardoned by Trump or Obama.

Persian.

Many years ago I read an article that explained the reason for the English language (American version) is becoming the international language is because it can be twisted, misused, and mispronounced yet it is still possible to get the gist of what the talker is saying.


The usual way of saying that a ship is arriving would go something like - The ship is approaching the harbor.

But is can also be said in some of these ways the meaning can still be understood.

1. The ship she's a com'a.

2. There's the boat.

3. Here com'a da boat.

4. The boata be a here soon.

5. The ship she's a close.

6. etc, etc

The sentence structure is so complex in many other languages that it is very difficult to misuse so many words and still get the point across.

IIRC the silent initial p comes from words with a Greek origin/lineage incorporated into English (e.g., pneumatic). Ditto for ph functioning like f. So you would have to ask some long dead Greeks the reason they used extra "unnecessary" letters. Wouldn't be surprised if many English language quirks are due to English borrowing from so many languages.

Slavic languages are pretty tough to learn, the gender thing is rough. They also have words/phrases that are used with familiar people like family, and separate lingo for people you don't know, or elders.
They generally have more letters, so the pronunciation is a little clearer.
They also tend to be more polite. US/English is pretty harsh, and a bit disrespectful. I think this leads to a cultural divide.

Is Ebonics a second language?

I would not be surprised that is correct. Root words in english originate from numerous other languages.
EX: Savvy-corruption of Spanish sabe (usted) (you) know, from saber to know, from Latin sapere to be wise.
Why is it depot is not pronounced as de/pot or police is not po/lice?

Years ago several Of us historian types were perusing the Bexar Archive Translations of list of contraband French trade goods seized by Spanish authorities in east Texas circa 1730. One word we came upon was a a description of a type cloth that was Spanish corruption of a French corruption of a common (at that time) english article of clothing. The description went something like " xxxxx bolts of cloth commonly used by the English for "redingotes". We pondered this word for several years and we finally ran across it in a french text. Redingotes = "Riding coats"

Actually, English is the best language. You can express more ideas with more precision in English than any other language. There a reason it's the language of business, and continues to progress toward becoming the common tongue for everyone.

Not to mention getting around the [bleep] bleeps.

If someone told you to keep your feet only slightly apart, one could still say they are relatively close together.

If you pulled a lego model apart , you could still pile all the parts together in a heap close together.

Essentially 'apart' refers to separation, breakdown or division.

Some confusion is created when religion gets ahold of a word and decides to assign its own meaning to it.

Then we have foreign names in languages that don't use our alphabet. Who the heck translates them to English, anyway? Why can't they spell them phonetically? Many are impossible to sound out to pronounce them right.
I used to know a Laotian woman who's name was pronounced Pat. Nothing hard about that, but some idiot translator added a silent H to spell it Phat. In English, that's pronounced Fat.

I read your post two times. It was too good not to post a comment.

Welcome to the world of cults.

That's actually one of the easier ones as each spelling has an entirely different meaning.

How about:
Bow to the guy in the bow tie sitting in the bow of the boat holding the pine bough.

Sometimes you nguyen and sometimes you lose.

Ever read any Russian literature like War and Peace? Names are a nightmare. Russians might have 5 or 6 names and which one they use depends on who they're talking to. Family will call you name #1. A close friend will call you name #2. A casual friend will call you name #3, etc. A good book translator will just pick one and stick with it all the way through the book. Otherwise, you'll be half way through it before you can figure out the names.
I tried reading the original War and Peace and got totally lost. Then someone loaned me a different translation with the names straightened out and it was much more enjoyable.

Yes! Read Gogol and Dostoyevsky. Need to start back on Bulgakov's "The Master and the Margarita", when I can!

Xcuse me while I go phuoc myselph.

Of course English is silly, the Brits invented it.

And we supplied most of the technical terms used by the rest of the world.

For example, phairly soon planet earth will seese saying whore and use Klinton instead.

HowamIdoin'?

I spent 5 years trying to learn German in High School, and never really got anywhere. Then on vacation in Germany, five beers and a pretty girl, and I really got somewhere!

Doin yust fine Dan.

Can you fix this auto correct doe?

Actually, the language of the Brits had little to do with English. It survives in places like Wales though.

It's fun watching Japanese anime and hearing an English (or Engrish) word or phrase pop up among all of the Japanese, heavily accented of course.

"Okay" is a universal word understood by all - I've heard it in Spanish, German and Japanese language TV programs or conversations.

Okey-dokey is about as ubiquitous, and funnier.

Yep four words the whole world knows. F.u.C.K, amen, coke cola! All english. Never been anywhere everyone didn't understand these words!

It's incredible that no matter how badly a Chinaman screws up the instructions for some piece of crap that you buy, you can still figure out how to put it together.

Actually, all are examples of words whose origin is not English.

That is of course one of the great features of the English language - it takes up words, plays around with them, and over time even changes the meaning, and sometimes the pronunciation and spelling of them. Words are allowed quite free rein, unlike some other languages.

That is why dictionaries are so useful, but need constant updating. They don't prescribe the words we can use, and how we may use them. They serve instead to describe them - and it can be a job for the lexicographers to keep up.

Two women got in an argument about the correct pronunciation of 'neither'. One insisted it's nee ther, the other insisted it's nigh ther. They couldn't agree so when they saw an old Scotsman walking by, they asked him to settle it. He listened to their arguments and said 'It's nay ther, lasses, nay ther.'

Not onry speak engrish know Vienamee.

Rong time back GI, I spend time near Phuoc Dat. Rittre boy serr his #1 mother for 50 P. "She virgin GI!", he say. They arr say that, sound rike burrchitt to me.

Thank you for chance to tark that tark again, it been rong time!

I hear "OK" over here every once in a while. "baibai" (bye bye) is nearly ubiquitous though...

Yes,

I like my translators with long hair.

...and they're...

Also, we have the three "toos"...

LEAD

Consider the possibilities

Well with all due respects...

If English is stupid.... then there are how many zillion other languages to chose from to learn and use at home...

If you think English is stupid and hard to learn, have ya ever been exposed to Ebonics?

I took 6 levels of German in High School.. was fluent in it, and would even think in German... however, ya don't use it, ya eventually lose it...

I can sorta understand TV German Still... but subtitles helps me remember better...