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Originally Posted by elemenoP
I feel sorry for people learning English as a second language because it's SO inconsistent. Heck, I feel sorry for my 7 year old, learning how to spell!
eP
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When I taught English in Germany, my (German) students tended to think it was the easiest language to learn. I.e., "You just have to learn a little bit of grammar and then all you do is learn words."
Quote:
Originally Posted by plib
...with the end result that English is considered to have the largest vocabulary in the world, and enables shades of meaning that are difficult to encompass in other languages.
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The nuances in English aren't any more complicated than the nuances in the language of any other developed country. Here's a link to an interesting Geoff Nunberg article:
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/payack.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quelch
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 !
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My non-wikipedia reference works tell me that "rooves" has never been the correct plural of "roof." But that "hooves" and "hoofs" are both correct.
"Dwarves" is purely Tolkien...although he's pretty influential; I don't think you ever see "Dwarfs" used in post-Tolkien fantasy literature. (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs predates him.) So the descriptivist in me says that the proper plural for a fantasy dwarf (but not a white dwarf!) is "dwarves."