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Old 06-12-2012, 09:31 AM   #30
QuantumIguana
Philosopher
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Quelch View Post
When I was young, single and happy

The plural of roof was rooves, now it's roofs (either is correct according to Wikipedia)

and the plural of hoof, hooves, now it's hoofs

English is changing all the time

In the future we may be writing, not just m8t but l8t and f8t etc.

With millions of Asians learning English we're sure to have lots of Asian words becoming part of English !
"Hooves" feels more natural to me than "hoofs", the transition between the v sound and the s sound feels smoother. But that may just be from having learned the language that way.

Foreign words tend to enter the language when they will a gap in our language. "Mansion" is useful, it easily distingusihes between an ordinary house and a very large expensive house. Maybe it would be better if we didn't feel the need to make such a distinction, maybe not. But the word would fade if users of the language didn't think it was a useful distinction.

Words relating to food - types of food or methods of cooking - come over to English the easiest.
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