this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
387 points (91.4% liked)
Showerthoughts
29325 readers
2 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Posts must be original/unique
- Be good to others - no bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
All languages have quirks, but English is awful.
I only realized that the more I studied other languages, making me reflect on English.
Like, English doesn't have a future tense. It seems like a pretty basic thing, but in English you say "I'm going to X". Why do you use the verb 'to go' there? Why is that the way English creates a future tense? If you're headed to the store now: I'm going to the store. If it's happening later: I'm going to go to the store. WTF is this bullshit? "going to go"? Just stop and think for a second about "going" and "go" in that phrase.
And the verb "to do", why is that part of questions in English? Statement: You have a dog. Question: Do you have a dog? What does "to do" have to do with any of that? Why is "doing" the verb that somehow is used to turn a statement into a question?
And then there's "to use". Using is to take, hold, deploy, consume... so why is it sometimes part of the past tense. Sure, you can say "I walked to school", but if you want to talk about habits or routines: "I used to walk to school". Why is "to use" even involved there at all?
That's not even accounting for spelling and pronunciation which is just ridiculous in English.
We have a letter 'k' that reliably makes a certain sound, and a letter 's' that reliably makes another sound. But, a huge variety of words use "c" which can make a 'k' sound like cat, or an 's' sound like city. The letter 'c' has no sound of its own, it's just a randomizer machine for one of the other useful sounds. The letter 'g' has one sound that no other letter makes, in words like "grip" and "great". There's another letter "j" that makes a different sound, like in "jet" and the name "Jim". But, for some reason, sometimes the "g" makes a "j" sound, so "Jim" and "gym" have the same sound but completely different spellings, leading to bullshit like the confusion over how to pronounce "gif".
English has roughly 20 vowel sounds, depending on the accent, but the vowel letters are 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u', and sometimes 'y'. So, you'd think that at least those 5/6 are sorted and the other 20 come from combinations, right? Nope. In British English, for some reason "can" and "can't" get a different vowel sound for the 'a', despite "can't" being a contraction for "can not", which literally contains "can". The letter "u" can sound different between "put" and "putt", even though you're just tacking a 't' to the end of that combination of letters. If you tack an 's' on the end it doesn't change, but if you tack an 'e' on the end... whoa, an entirely new sound different from both "put" and "putt".
I'm glad the world is slowly converging on one language that allows everyone to communicate with everyone else, but it sucks that the language that came out on top is English.
Hey what's the difference between put and putt?
Putt is shorthand for "put and only put".
Verbose HTTP is looking great.
As opposed to "put and do something else"?
No get! Only put