# Why are words spelled an pronounced as they are? Who decides these things?



## Chris P Bacon (Aug 4, 2021)

Why is a word like knife pronounced as if it were spelled nife? Or even nyfe? Think of the word wife. Why should it not be spelled as kwife? English has many peculiarities, I think and it’s nothing big or anything that really _needs _to be changed but I’m just curious as to whether (weather?) anyone else thinks that language is komplikated (sp?) sometimes. Yes, I think most everyone will know that word should be spelled as complicated but what’s the fun in always doing what’s expected? Nun, eyed say! What words can you think of alternate spelings for? Do we really need double letters in so many words? I’m a busy guy and with the time I could save by using only a single letter in so many words, why, it might add years to my life and yours! This is, lest you wonder, a frivolous topic. Please leave religion, politics, conspiracy theories, vaccination opinions and anything not dealing directly with word pronunciation and spelling out of the discussion. Thanks in advants!


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## Devi (Aug 4, 2021)

Well, Mr. Bacon — or is that Bayquon?  — I think it's a great topic. Our American English spelling likely gives learners difficulties.


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## win231 (Aug 4, 2021)

You mean like you did in the title?   
_"Why are words spelled *an* pronounced as they are?" _


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## Devi (Aug 4, 2021)

LOL. When I take up spelling errors, I have to take extra care not to make errors of my own.


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## Chet (Aug 4, 2021)

To my knowledge, Spanish doesn't have those irregularities.


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## jerry old (Aug 4, 2021)

Why are words not spelled like there pronounced

So the grammar czars will have a reason to chastise...


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## Pinky (Aug 4, 2021)

Yoov givin mee pozz for thot, Mr. Bakin


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## Murrmurr (Aug 4, 2021)

Peculiar spelling relates to where the word originated, i.e., Greek, Hispanic, German, etc. If you know the origins of words, then spelling is easier. Word origins are almost always noted in a dictionary, especially older ones.

Language and word spelling does evolve. It has evolved slowly but I wont be suprized if its evalooshin speeds up signifikintly in the kuming decaids.


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## Chris P Bacon (Aug 4, 2021)

win231 said:


> You mean like you did in the title?
> _"Why are words spelled *an* pronounced as they are?" _


The word was *and *is pronounced correctly but it’s not the write word. In my haste to type a meaningfull title, I inadvertently left a letter off of one of my words. Thanks so much for finding my error. Had that been a test of observational powers, you would have passed handily. Had it been a test of charitable nature though, your score might not have been the same. Forgive my trespasses and I’ll forgive yours. ¡Muchas gracias, señor! ¡Que tenga un lindo día!


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## Murrmurr (Aug 4, 2021)

Chris P Bacon said:


> The word was *and *is pronounced correctly but it’s not the write word. In my haste to type a meaningfull title, I inadvertently left a letter off of one of my words. Thanks so much for finding my error. Had that been a test of observational powers, you would have passed handily. Had it been a test of charitable nature though, your score might not have been the same. Forgive my trespasses and I’ll forgive yours. ¡Muchas gracias, señor! ¡Que tenga un lindo día!


My niece always spells the word "and" without the D. I guess becuz thats how she pronounces it.


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## Alligatorob (Aug 4, 2021)

_Ghoti_​_https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti_


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## LittleRed (Aug 4, 2021)

Chet, I'm not sure that Spanish has many issues like English does.  However, I recently learned a little Spanish.  While the actual words are difficult for me to remember, the one thing that was easy to remember is the vowels are always pronounced the same.  Therefore, the craziness for words like "read", as in "I READ a book last week" and "I will READ a book next week" can't happen in Spanish.  I always knew how to pronounce a word, even if I didn't know exactly what it meant.


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## Devi (Aug 5, 2021)

LittleRed said:


> Chet, I'm not sure that Spanish has many issues like English does.  However, I recently learned a little Spanish.  While the actual words are difficult for me to remember, the one thing that was easy to remember is the vowels are always pronounced the same.  Therefore, the craziness for words like "read", as in "I READ a book last week" and "I will READ a book next week" can't happen in Spanish.  I always knew how to pronounce a word, even if I didn't know exactly what it meant.


You're right about Spanish. The only thing is the constant accents. Yow!


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## Leonie (Aug 5, 2021)

An oldie but a goodie, by that most prolific poet Annony Mouse

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.


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## senior chef (Aug 7, 2021)

Chet said:


> To my knowledge, Spanish doesn't have those irregularities.


In Spanish, Juan, and most words beginnings with "J" are pronounced as if it is a "W". ie:  Juan is pronounced wan. Just saying.


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## Alligatorob (Aug 8, 2021)

Chris P Bacon said:


> Why are words spelled an pronounced as they are? Who decides these things?​


The short answers for English are a long history and nobody...  English is a mish mash of different languages, a mix of old Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin, German and many others.  Each bringing different spelling, and it has of course evolved over time.  Most other languages, such as Spanish, have undergone relatively recent spelling reforms, but English not so much.  This is a link to an interesting article on spelling reform that explains a lot of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_reform 

An excerpt from the article:

_English spelling contains many irregularities for various reasons. English has generally preserved the original spelling when borrowing words; and even more importantly, English began to be widely written and printed during the Middle English period: the later development of modern English included a Great Vowel Shift and many other changes in phonology, yet the older spellings, which are no longer phonetic, have been kept. On the other hand, many words were refashioned to reflect their Latin or Greek etymology. For example, for "debt" early Middle English wrote det/dette, with the b being standardized in spelling in the 16th century, after its Latin etymon debitum; similarly for quer/quere, which was respelled as choir in the 17th century, modelled on Greek χορός chorus; in both cases, the pronunciation was not changed._


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## Time Waits 4 No Man (Aug 9, 2021)

Chris P Bacon said:


> Why is a word like knife pronounced as if it were spelled nife? Or even nyfe?



In regard to the word "knife" the "k" was once pronounced, as was the "e" on the end:



> "Up until the 17th century we observed this practice and actually pronounced “knee,” for instance, as “k'nee” and *“knife” as “k'nife*.” But sometime in the 1500s we started dropping that “k” sound, probably because folks simply found that “kn” sound a bit clumsy to pronounce."


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## Alligatorob (Aug 10, 2021)

floridaliving said:


> I can not pronounce the word buoy hardly. It sounds as if I am saying boy huh?


I don't think this is unusual or a mispronunciation.  It may have to do with accent; where are you originally from?  Where did you grow up?

Wikipedia lists buoy and boy as homophones (words pronounced the same) for Canadians.  I don't think they are the only ones.

I am from the US south and my wife is from Utah, we pronounce a lot of words differently.  For example I pronounce the L in salmon.

https://bestlifeonline.com/different-pronunciations/


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## horseless carriage (Aug 10, 2021)

In 1906, U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt tried to get the government to simplify the spelling of 300 common English words. However, this didn't go over well with Congress or the public. In 1906, Andrew Carnegie was convinced that English could be a universal language used around the world if only English was easier to read and to write. In an attempt to tackle this problem, Carnegie decided to fund a group of intellectuals to discuss this issue. The result was the Simplified Spelling Board.

The Simplified Spelling Board was founded on March 11, 1906, in New York. Included among the Board's original 26 members were such notables as author Samuel Clemens, (Mark Twain,) library organizer Melvil Dewey, U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Brewer, publisher Henry Holt, and former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lyman Gage. Brander Matthews, professor of dramatic literature at Columbia University, was made the chairman of the Board.

The Board examined the history of the English language and found that written English had changed over the centuries, sometimes for the better but also sometimes for the worse. The Board wanted to make written English phonetic again, as it was long ago, before silent letters such as "e" (as in "axe,") "h" (as in "ghost,") "w" (as in "answer,") and "b" (as in "debt") crept in. However, silent letters were not the only aspect of spelling that bothered these gentlemen.

There were other commonly used words that were just more complex than they needed to be. For instance, the word "bureau" could much more easily be spelled if it was written as "buro." The word "enough" would be spelled more phonetically as "enuf," just as "though" could be simplified to "tho." And, of course, why have a "ph" combination in "phantasy" when it could much more easily be spelled "fantasy."

Lastly, the Board recognized that there were a number of words for which there already were several options for spelling, usually one simple and the other complicated. Many of these examples are currently known as differences between American and British English, including "honor" instead of "honour," "center" instead of "centre," and "plow" instead of "plough." Additional words also had multiple choices for spelling such as "rime" rather than "rhyme" and "blest" rather than "blessed."

https://www.thoughtco.com/teddy-roosevelt-simplifies-spelling-1779197

The reason that Spanish is a simpler linguistic language is because, like all Latin based languages it follows the Latin structure. English has many languages, that sit side by side, then we had a fellow name of Shakespeare, who not only created new words, he jumbled up a good deal of what was there. He also dropped the Latin based verb endings and so much more. 

Did you know that despite there being in excess of 273,000 words, English is still the first choice for those whom it's not their mother tongue, to learn? That's resulted in 1.35 billion people being able to converse in English.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266808/the-most-spoken-languages-worldwide/


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