Oh, English!

7 thoughts on “Oh, English!”

1. My favorite: pronounce "unionized"

   Reply

2. Our college had a promo campaign to attract MBA students. The slogan was “It’s time to LEAD”. And even though “It’s time to [verb]” makes sense and “It’s time to [noun]” makes no sense, I couldn’t help reading it as the metal.

   Reply

3. +keith olszewski That's easy – there are two pronounciations: unionized and unionized =D

   Reply

4. +keith olszewski — also periodic, if you're into chemistry. I have a list of about fifty of these words I've dug up over the years. They're surprisingly hard to find, but it's always a nice a-ha! moment when I do.

   Reply

5. Yes…English is so weird…

   Reply

6. LOL.

   Reply

7. John Betjeman famously wrote

   Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!

   Such is the history of the English language and geography, that for non-native speakers – like Americans* – it would not be immediately obvious how to pronounce ‘Slough’, though the next line’s rhyme –

   It isn’t fit for humans now,

   would demonstrate it.

   However, if he had written

   I’ve had just about enough

   they would be none the wiser. Of course he could have used

   Your belching chimneys make me cough

   and it would have still looked right, though I can not imagine how it would rhyme with

   It is a God forsaken borough

   Though (look another one) this would have let him go on to

   You are not as fine as Edinburgh

   to really confuse things. Or maybe the second line could be

   You’re roads have become really slow.

   We are of course talking about the language where we have ‘mouse’/’mice’ but the plural of ‘house” is not ‘hice’, and the singular of ‘dice’ is not ‘douce’.

   *Foot note

   Listening to an American saying ‘Worcestershire Sauce’ is one of the great maddening pleasures of life.

   Reply