this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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German has the awesome ability to just shove words together to make new words and the language accepts it. It's unambiguous (so I understand).
This is another great opportunity to promote a book that I enjoyed as a fan of language:
Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme―And Other Oddities of the English Language
Interview with the author here (got me to buy the book):
In 1920, a Dutch writer named Gerard Nolst Trenité published a poem in English titled The Chaos, designed to draw attention to English spelling and pronunciation — and all the confusion its absurdities have let loose upon the world. It begins “Dearest creature in creation; Studying English pronunciation; I will teach you in my verse; Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse” and ends: “Hiccough has the sound of ‘cup’…. My advice is—give it up!”