Simplified English vs Traditional English
Check the Declaration of Independence. You’ll find the ‘u’. Noah Webster was a dick.
I always want to pronounce the American versions of these words phonetically when I see them.
And what the heck is going on with the US pronunciation of “buoy”? None of those syllables are in that word.
Buo-y
Apparently we have the Dutch to blame for that one, as the verb form is apparently descended from Spanish.
I still don’t understand the English insistence on borrowing words from other languages, yet refusal to standardize spelling into ways that actually make sense within the language.
So I still blame English for being silly with their transliteration.
Blame the great vowel shift.
But also, English spelling can’t standardize because English pronunciation isn’t standard. West Coast vs Midwest vs South vs East Coast have vastly different accents. Any spelling reform that makes English phonetic for one would be wrong for the others.
And it keeps changing! People keep moving and interacting with other languages, adding and dropping words and accents over time.
Blame the French actually, they invaded and screwed everything up beyond repair.
I don’t get US spelling of “meter” for the metric system they don’t even use. My car dashboard is two meters wide. Speedometer and tachometer. It’s probably about half a metre wide.
I dunno what a kilometer would be. A device that can measure anything in thousands of something; weight, volume, speed, etc.
“The scale says you weigh 0.07 metric tonnes.”
“Oh my god, I’m so fat.”
“No, that’s only 70kg, it’s this stupid kilometer. Makes everything seem bigger than it is.”
Well you have me- from proto-european which means to measure.
Then you have metrical (metricus/metrikos from Latin/Greek) that means to measure rhythm in poetry.
Mētrum/Metron again from Latin/Greek meaning “measure, length, size, limit, proportion”
Then “metre” which is originally a unit of length. Then you have a “metre stick” which is a stick used to measure a metre. You can blame the French for basically calling it a “measurement stick” but it refers to a very specific measurement.
Then you have the -or suffix in Latin which means “to have to do with” or “to pertain to”. Then that turns in to -re and -er in Old English.
And like everything else - Brittan used both for centuries before deciding one was “right” and everyone else is at fault for the other way (just like how “Soccer” is a British term). Famously Shakespeare used both -re and -er.
Lastly, the US uses the metric system for its professions. It’s layman’s terms that don’t use metric.
Because homonyms are the worst part of any language and Noah Webster agrees with me.
for the metric system they don’t even use.
British people will fund pirates to steal our measuring weights, only to convert themselves 200 years later and then act like the US doesn’t have a single STEM field. And then drive by the mile for a pint of milk.
Now that you have it open, could you find a funny compound noun or two? I love those!
How about Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung? That’s my personal favorite, though it lacks umlauts.
I’m German, I don’t need a dictionary for that. We make them up on the fly. For example, Autowaschanlagenführer or Türöffnungsmechanismuswartung
And yet they still use king George’s foot as a unit of measurement, curious.
It would be awesome to have a base-12 number system paired with a base-12 measurement system. It’s just so much nicer to deal with than metric or imperial. So many measurements would become much easier. Take length. You could have the base measurement be equal to a meter, then use 1/3 meter sticks as roughly equivalent to a 1 foot ruler.
