1-21-2006 Word of the Day

[amateurrobotguy]

Fire.
Why: Such a wierd word. How come we don't pronounce it fe-ray? It would make more sense if it were spelled fier. Maybe Webster had a typo

[KenWittlief]

good question. I use to have a Pontiac Fiero (fee arrow)

but then "ire" is pronounced Eye'er.

If you understand the nonsense in english, then explain it to us

the ones that really get me are words like "can-nob" and "Can-eyef" (knob and knife)

the k is silent? then why is it there? what are we paying the K for? to stand around all day and do nothing?!

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by amateurrobotguy

Fire.

Should be pronounced Furry.

Fir (as in tree)
and long E.

w00t for the english language.

[Andrew Blair]

Or pneumatic.

Hold up a minute while I get out the old Andrew's (personal knockoff of Webster's )


Puh-nee-oo-mat-ik : A device that "puhs" kuhnees.

Ah well, at least we don't have to have genders on words and conjugate verbs. (Ich hasse Deutsch!!!)

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by Andrew Blair

Ah well, at least we don't have to have genders on words and conjugate verbs. (Ich hasse Deutsch!!!)

We might not have genders, but we do conjugate verbs somewhat. Usually this is in the third person singular in the present tense, but for some irregular verbs this is in other tenses as well.

Example 1: to walk
I walk.
You walk.
He/She/It walks.
We walk.
They walk.

Example 2: to be
I am.
You are.
He/She/It is.
We are.
They are.

But then we get things like a dozen mice, twenty deer, three moose, when "logic" would tell us that these are a dozen mouses, twenty deers, and three mooses.

And then we gets words like tsunami, knife, pneumonia, or phase. Wouldn't "logic" tell us that these words should be spelled 'soonamy', 'nife', 'nemonia', or 'fase'?



English is slowly becoming a kind of defacto language of the world, and is slowly taking all these other languages and combining them into one. This started nearly a millennium ago, when old German and an early version of French combined to get Old English. That is why English has words like 'big', 'small', or 'house' (these words came from old German), while we have words like 'intelligent' or 'petite' (these words came from French).

English has the widest vocabulary of any language. The reason for this is that English keeps "borrowing" words verbatim from other languages, and we just keep adding new words. Some of these words contain certain spellings and pronunciations that are specific to that particular language. All we do it make this an "irregular" word.