this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023

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199

What irritates you the most with your own language? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Mine is people who separate words when they write. I'm Norwegian, and we can string together words indefinetly to make a new word. The never ending word may not make any sense, but it is gramatically correct

Still, people write words the wrong way by separating them.

Examples:

"Ananas ringer" means "the pineapple is calling" when written the wrong way. The correct way is "ananasringer" and it means "pineapple rings" (from a tin).
"Prinsesse pult i vinkel" means "a princess fucked at an angle". The correct way to write it is "prinsessepult i vinkel", and it means "an angeled princess desk" (a desk for children, obviously)
"Koke bøker" means "to cook books". The correct way is "kokebøker" and means "cookbooks"

I see these kinds of mistakes everywhere!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

English's acceptance of old world spellings and superfluous letters. Everything should be spelled phonetically and consistently, and we should change the alphabet to get rid of confusion. Here's my suggestions:

Everything is spelled phonetically. No exceptional letter rules, and names are included.
Vowels change sound with an accent, not a silent e or modifier. So Kate is now Kāt. Vote is Vōt.
C can always be replaced with an S or K, so now it makes the CH sound. So cat is kat, chase is cās.
X is bullshit and doesn't mean anything, so we'll use the Mayan version and now it makes the SH sound.
Y can always be replaced with an i or e, so we'll go old English and now it makes the TH sound.
The -ed and -er sounds don't need the E. It doesn't do anything.
Double letters are unnecessary , so now the vowel sound of U,(ū) makes the oo sound. The original sound is now ēū, as in kēūkumbr.
G is now a vowel. Put a line on top for the J sound.
Since j is now unnecessary, it makes the French J sound, or DZh. We don't us it much but it's nice to have.
Since ū has changed, it can now replace W, ūic kan bē asīnd ā nū soūnd låtr az nēd bē.
Z is on thin fucking ice, but for now it'll replace soft s' where it's used. Or ēūzd, if ū ūil. It will be the difference between prōnoūns and prōnoūnz.

So naū anē budē kan prōnoūns anē ūrd imēdēetlē, and nō ūun ūil sā unuyr nām rong. Yis haz Ben mī Ted Tok.

Hmm, could probably use a long a letter. Tok doesn't feel right. Maybe the French ê?

I'm not sure about the NG sound. Maybe J is also a vowel, and G accented is NG? I'm open to suggestions. Sugjestxunz.

Edit: also dates. It should be YYYY/MM/DD. Categories should always go from least to most specific.

On that subject, even though it's not language specific, we should have thirteen four week months with names that make sense. Every date of every year is the same day, planning ahead and due dates are simple. It makes 364 days, so new years day and leap year are extra special holiday days, nobody works or buys anything. If you have an emergency on one of those days, and can't make it til Sunday the first, yo either call an acquaintance who can help, or lose and die. Sorry mate. Buy three days worth of food on Saturday the 28th of Thirtember. Hope the power doesn't go out. Or move the free day to July, which is now called September.

[+] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

While I'm not liking your phrase "bad regional accents" I do think you have a point. There are many, many different English accents and to attempt to capture that in the orthography is too much hassle and detail. The "dictionary pronunciation" is really more of a proto pronunciation than actual dialect-ized speech. It is a generalization and standardization and to an extent "the correct" way to say something Which is prescriptive, ugly and discriminatory and quite likely also racist. But there really is a need to simplify and standardize instead of capturing every tiny nuance of all dialects.

In my mind the best way to do this is just pick what you believe to be the most standard English accent and use that. Acknowledge that there are countless dialects. But this is the standard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I agree with the regional accent issue, but I don't like the choice of example. Body on its own is clearly an o, but anybody is much more commonly a u sound. That's less a regional thing and more just language evolving over time.

I'm far more interested in the changing of c and x to being actually useful letters, as opposed just replacements for other letters that we can easily change from reading to speaking. The y thing isn't entirely necessary, but we used to use it as a th, as in ye olde inn, and TH is a weird combo of you think about it.

G and J should get their shit together too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think I agree with much of this. I'll have to come back later and re-read more carefully but by and large this looks great.

But good luck getting English teachers onboard.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There actually already exists an international phonetic alphabet, which can be applied to English as well and is used in teaching English. Here. It would actually be pretty cool to see this used more in writing.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Every single one of these is straight cancer with no redeeming qualities.

The complexity of English is a beautiful thing, driven by its rich heritage of influences. The language is complex because the culture and etymology are complex. It's supposed to be.