Q: Why is Peach spelled with an "a" and speech is not ?
- Thread starter DdBob
- Start date
Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
This is the set up for a terrible Gallagher bit. Keep Deebo away from the watermelons.
My guess is in the etymology...peach is from Old French where as speech has German roots. Also, English orthography is a bitch and was pretty nonstandard for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if “peeches” are somewhere one the written record. I don’t care enough about this matter to dive in, but there’s probably a Middle English (or even Elizabethan era) pronunciation that makes the modern spelling make more sense.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
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tiger roach
Urban Bovine Knievel
And, plus, the 15,000 other similar cases in the English language.
And speaking of peaches, why are they so undependable? You get one that’s so delicious it’s like a religious experience, then spend the rest of your peach-eating life being disappointed by tasteless imposters.
And speaking of peaches, why are they so undependable? You get one that’s so delicious it’s like a religious experience, then spend the rest of your peach-eating life being disappointed by tasteless imposters.
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
Why ‘meat’ and not ‘meet’? Why ‘feat’ and not ‘feet’? Why ‘real’ and not ‘reel’?
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
The interesting thing for me in the ‘-ch’ that comes seemingly out of nowhere. But like most of this shit, it probably just derives from centuries of mispronunciation (aka accents) in rural settings.
DdBob
Dogue in teh desert
so true
Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
Hey, when you have a big dumb language with all the words—the best words, beautiful words, the most words—who can be expected to know how to pronounce ‘em all?
I’m very glad that I learned English as a native speaker because you’ve got to be kidding me in terms of teaching this mutant shaggy dog story to someone who is used to Spanish or similar where everything looks like it sounds and the vocabulary is like 10 words in total and most verbs behave regularly and there’s very few batshit insane compound portmanteaus made of Old Norse fart noises plus the slang Latin word for a whore’s breakfast that gives us the modern word “trombone.” It’s like the entire language is a Monty Python in joke about Frenchified Vikings making fun of how the local rabble sweet talk their sheep.
Flamencology
You don't deserve koa.
I always like to describe the English language as the Borg Collective; everything it touches, it assimilates. It’s the purest form of democracy that I know. Kinda like Roman religion.
Chicken Man
Kick Henry Jackassowski
Spelling has only been, like, a thing for maybe 200 years. Don't get bent out of shape about it.
DdBob
Dogue in teh desert
I fictd it for u
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
and why do we add an "s" suffix to a verb? To make it plural like a noun? no. It's the opposite, when the noun has a plural suffix you should not use one on the verb and when a noun is singular you should use an "s" on the verb. Sometimes.
So cats meow. The cat meows.
I meow. You meow.
He meows. She meows.
They meow.
So it mostly applies to third person singular pronouns, but first and second person singular pronouns get the "plural" verb like the 3rd person plural.
Simple right?
So cats meow. The cat meows.
I meow. You meow.
He meows. She meows.
They meow.
So it mostly applies to third person singular pronouns, but first and second person singular pronouns get the "plural" verb like the 3rd person plural.
Simple right?
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Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
Pretty much. I suspect that the rather informal approach to declension and rather mushy and nonstandard conjugation system makes English particularly good at snarfing up the best parts of other languages.
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
fikst
rickenvox
Animal Psychic
There are plenty of cases in Spanish where the spelling alone does not give adequate clues to the pronunciation. The the ‘b’ becoming a fricative ‘v’ like sound when surrounded by vowels.
Polynesian languages like Hawaiian have the most simple structure with all syllables in a CV (consonant vowel) format (English has CV, VC, and CVC). Of course they didn’t have spelling or written language until Europeans came through and scripted their languages.
Japanese also has straightforward pronunciation rules.
Peen Simmons
Let’s Get Obtuse!
Sine rickenvox todo es como el cielo.
— Ancient German Proverb
— Ancient German Proverb
Knox in Box
Rustbelt refugee.
Bill Bryson's book "Mother Tongue" is an interesting and amusing read that deals with a lot of these topics. The origins of our language are a very twisted affair between Celtic, Anglo Saxon, French and Normanic tongues.