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Complex Numbers #1046703 added March 19, 2023 at 8:10am
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Revisited: "Speling Iz Dificult"
Today's random draw from the archives is from not so very long ago: October of 2021.
It concerned, as one might glean from the title, English spelling. "Speling Iz Dificult" 
As it's less than two years old, the link is still there and, if you missed it the first time or want a reminder, here it is again.
In that entry, I noted:
I will say this, though: At some point, the spelling/pronunciation link becomes a shibboleth. I think people use it to identify in-groups. For example, in my area, there's a road with the name Rio Road. We use it to spot tourists. "Yeah, I hear (business) is on Ree-oh Road." Oh, they must be from out of town; the proper pronunciation is Rye-oh. Or there's a nearby town named Staunton. You hear someone pronounce it "stawn-ton" and you know they ain't from around here and need to be watched carefully and maybe lynched.
Weird story about that. Last week, I had to visit a dentist whose office is on a court just off Rio Road. It's on the other side of the city, but it's a small city. Nevertheless, I had Google Maps connected to my car's system (sorcery) so I could hopefully be aware of traffic and/or speed traps on the way there and back.
Anyway, the point is, as I was leaving, the Google voice went: "In five hundred feet, turn right onto Ree-oh Road." Annoyed because I'd just been to a dentist, I snarled, "Rye-oh!" A few seconds later, it reminded me: "Turn right onto Ree-oh Road." Not wanting to take anymore bullshit from a fake voice, I grunted, "Rye-oh!"
Then, after I made the suggested turn (really, the only other option was turning left), it said, "Stay on Rye-oh Road for a quarter of a mile."
I nearly crashed. Had it actually listened to me? Had it actually learned?
Another bit, not nearly as portentous:
Probably the worst offender in the orthography world, though, is the geoduck.
You see a word like that, and you think: oh, it must be gee-oh-duck. And it's probably a bird, right? An... earth bird? Well, obviously you're an ignorant rube and unworthy of respect because you didn't know it's pronounced "gooeyduck" and it's actually an enormous mollusk. How in the inconsistent hell do you get "gooey" from "geo?" I mean, seriously, goddamn, STOP IT.
I was remiss, then, in not noting that "geoduck" came to English from a PNW Native language. It's possible that the "geo" part was a word for genitals, which, if you look at the mollusk, you might understand why. Nevertheless, there is no excuse whatsoever for spelling it like that. It's not like the Lushootseed language used Roman letters like English. Just do what you did with every other Native word, like Manhattan or Potomac, and fucking give it an English spelling closer to how it's pronounced. |
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