this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Showerthoughts

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'Choose' rhymes with 'lose'? I mean c'mon, someone did that shit on purpose πŸ‘€

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 35 minutes ago

Read rhymes with lead, and read rhymes with lead, but lead doesn't rhyme with read and lead doesn't rhyme with read.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

It's a lose/loose situation

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Yeah it should be looz / loose

[–] [email protected] 17 points 22 hours ago

I mean yeah 'loose' could probably be pronounced like 'choose' and it would still make sense, but it absolutely wouldnt make sense for 'lose' to be pronounced like 'moose' or 'goose'. Im not sure what you even mean when you say they switched meanings either because thats just false.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago

They never did. Their spelling, meaning, and pronunciation are the same as they have always been.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Wait, if they swapped meanings and then swapped spellings then doesn't that mean they're the same as before?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

Grrr! English strikes again!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

Lose lips think chips

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago

English is idiosyncratic as hell. Didn’t someone famous call it β€œnot a language but 3 languages in an overcoat.”

Adding to this specific instance is that even native speakers spell things wrong. They loose their keys, etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

Loose rhymes with noose. I can't think of a word that's spelled and pronounced like lose so you have me there.

choose lose cruise booze

all rhyme lol

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (47 children)

The bigger problem is that lose should rhyme with pose or close. Loose is fine.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Don't get me started on ough and ead.

The lead soldier kneaded dough in the bough brush while they read the book that they previously read while taking a furlough in the rough.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

How can the soldier knead anything if they're made of lead?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

I would lohz my shit if we had to pronounce it that way.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

english is a very silly language that's evolved so you can do almost anything with it

it's a risky strat but it seems to have worked

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

Lowe's loose lows lose loss.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

May as well combine words with the same pronunciation into one word and call it Simplified English (/s)

Honestly tho, this is one of the features of Simplified Chinese, which created the infamous "fuck vegetables" (干菜类).

It's meant to say "dried vegetables" (乾菜鑞 in TC), but δΉΎβ†’εΉ². Meanwhile, there exists εΉΉβ†’εΉ² as well, which means "fuck".

fuck vegetables

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (3 children)

they are very different in my mind. perhaps because i first came across them in their respective contexts through reading.

even when speaking, to me, lose rhymes with booze and loose rhymes with goose.

this has never been a problem for me, personally.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (6 children)

It's a miracle I know it, and having to teach someone how to read and spell was an eye opener for me trying to explain "this is like this except for this one word because... Reasons and sometimes there's a variation like this because...reasons" so many times.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Usually the reason is either because some jerks intentionally changed certain spellings to look more French/Latin ("receipt" didn't have a "p" originally, for example), or just because English is such a mongrel language with words taken from various other languages with different spelling and pronunciation rules.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Mostly the "reasons" just boil down to etymology. We spell things the way the languages we stole them from spelled them.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Agreed, I am teaching my second son to read.

I am having the same conversations as when I taught my first to read.

"ok, this word is a 'sight word' because it doesn't make the sounds you expect. It says won, but it looks like it says on-e"

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