Quote:
Originally Posted by HungLikeJesus
And on a somewhat related note:
Who came up with the spelling of choose, chose, lose, loose?
Choose rhymes with lose (at least in American English). Chose rhymes with hose. Loose rhymes with caboose. No wonder people have trouble learning English. |
You can add "loos" to the list. It's British slang for "toilets".
Pronunciations change but spellings are fossilized. Blood, flood. Great, steak, break. Vein, grey, they. There are ten or so different ways of pronouncing "ough". All these groups of words have changed their pronunciation but retained their archaic spellings.
English spelling is the linguistic equivalent of what you get when you don't cut the grass and prune the roses for a long time.