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People who started learning a second language, how has it made you aware how broken English is ? (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by x4740N@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Clarification Edit: for people who speak English natively and are learning a second language

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[-] BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 10 points 5 months ago

Don't forget that there once was a time when smart people just added letters to words that don't do anything - like the b in debt, which was called det before. Or when America got rid of Britains U after O because newspapers charged per letter.

[-] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 11 points 5 months ago

British newspapers were only able to subsidize the use of the letter 'u' through taxes levied on the colonies, which led to the revolution. So who's so smart after all?

Nah, seriously, the Normans added the 'u' to French-derived words after they invaded. English orthography wasn't standardized, though. Johnson kept the 'u' out of a sense of tradition when compiling his British dictionary, and Webster elided it in his American dictionary because we don't pronounce it. Neither spelling, -or or -our, derives from the other.

[-] x4740N@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

I don't know about "debt", I always pronounce a very subtle b when I say it and saying det just sounds like the "det" in "detrimental"

this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024

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