here’s some I’ve noticed:
- Why do we have articles? They’re mostly useless.
- Why do capital letters exist? (this is mainly an issue with the Greek and Latin alphabet though)
- Why is “I” used plural for verbs?
- Why are there so many inconsistent prefixes for tenses?
- 's is used for possessives. However, “its” is the possessive and “it’s” is not.
- Why do we have another set of pronouns for possessive pronouns?
- Why do adjectives go before the noun compared to basically every other language?
Why is there no adjective form of the word integrity? If someone has integrity they are _____? Because integral means something else so it can’t be that.
I suggest integratuitous.
The way they show up asking to buy some tea and before you know it they are running the show. Also now everyone is hooked on opium.
The word “colonel.”
Where is the god damn R sound coming from?!
I acknowledge english has many confusing and contrary facets, but I must counter with why do other languages assign gender to things and make others neutral? A car could be female, the muffler neutral, and the window glass male.
Also, I don’t have much to offer regarding adjectives other than it doesn’t matter. The human brain is capable of sorting both “the car blue” and “the blue car” just fine.
Capital letters let you read faster.
My biggest gripe as a non native speaker is phrasal verbs.
Unless you know exactly what they mean, you are screwed. You can’t decypher them, there’s no link between the meaning of the component parts and the phrasal verb.
As my English teacher used to tell us jokingly: you should never say: “I get on with my brother, but I get off with my sister”.
Similar with saying place names - The Map Men (men men men) tried to explain the ‘rules’, and concluded that there was no alternative but to learn the pronunciation of each place individually
Do other languages not have these? (Or fewer of them?)
What’s your native language if you don’t mind me asking?
Fascinating concept.
Interestingly I’ve heard from other people that Chinese languages are made difficult to learn for similar reasons. I wonder if this is actually a similarity between those languages and English
I’m French. I’m not aware of any other language that radically modifies the meaning of verbs with propositions in such a way.
As a foreigner, you might expect that break up and break down have opposite meanings because up and down do, but nope.
I don’t get why the French get to complain. Like every noun you have has a letter at the end you aren’t using. Just get rid of it. You don’t need to spell it Merlot. I don’t get it, is it like a free letter with any purchase of a word? Are you worried the other letters will fail and you want a backup plan?
We might have some silent letters, vestigial remnant of ancient forms, but English has basically no rule for pronunciation. It’s so funny watching English speakers debate among themselves how a name should be pronounced.
- Bear, pear, tear, tear, near.
- Rough, tough, though
- To read, read, read (your very best one, guys, believe me)
English is just weird. This thieving awful tongue that takes the leftovers of other languages and says it wrong forever.
We are the English+Borg. Your nouns will be assimilated. La resistance is now ours and futile.
We have overlapping terms that describe things we already have terms and words for.
We need to think of newer words, than just applying an already made word to mean several different things.
I agree that this is annoying, but I think your belief about its cause might be a bit of an assumption - as I understand it, this kind of thing is usually caused when dialects have different meanings for the same word and then they merge, rather than a simple lack of creativity.
