this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
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Linguistics Humor

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

People will really say shit about the silent letters in French and then completely ignore the unbelievably inconsistent pronunciation of "gh" in English.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

And why is "kn" even a thing in English?

Knowledge? Knight? Knee? Knapsack? Knitting?

How does that make any sense at all?

Edit" and then there's Gnome! Why isn't it Knome? Or Gnowledge?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

because it was literally pronounced like that not too long ago, compare "knight" to "knekt" in swedish.

[–] NostraDavid 3 points 3 weeks ago

In Dutch we still have "knecht" (knave/servant), and I recall that Dutch and English have some overlap, so it makes sense.

I also recall a video about English, having adopted the Latin alphabet, made less sense than English under the previous Futhark (runes).

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