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What are the most annoying things about English? (lemmy.xylight.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/asklemmy

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

here's some I've noticed:

Why do we have articles? They're mostly useless.
Why do capital letters exist? (this is mainly an issue with the Greek and Latin alphabet though)
Why is "I" used plural for verbs?
Why are there so many inconsistent prefixes for tenses?
's is used for possessives. However, "its" is the possessive and "it's" is not.
Why do we have another set of pronouns for possessive pronouns?
Why do adjectives go before the noun compared to basically every other language?

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[–] Jourei 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why the fuck are there no rules for pronunciation?? There is very little consistency in English.

I mean cases like yes - eyes, Kansas - Arkansas.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

English orthography is highly opaque because when words are loaned, they typically keep the spelling of their original language, whereas the pronunciation might differ

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Check out the poem "The chaos". It uses many of the inconsistencies in pronunciation

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've never seen this before, and I both adore and loathe it. If I hadn't grown up with this language, I'd contemplate giving up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes! Fck this. There's no way to decipher how a word is pronounced unless someone tells you.

[–] Jourei 3 points 1 year ago

And even then, going to another dialect, you're still in the wrong.