writer (derogatory). lead designer on Fallen London.
http://twitter.com/notbrunoagain
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vowel letters in English literally don't mean anything right, it's like any of <a, e, i, o, u> can be any of /a, e, i, o, u, ɑ, ɔ, æ, ɛ, ɪ, ʌ, ʊ, ə/, /ʉ/ if you're Australian, and you can just throw in a /:/ in there mostly at random.
which is how we get things like 'sweetie' -> 'sweaty'
This is partially why I find the handwringing about Semitic writing systems not including vowels so funny, because English encodes the least amount of information about vowels possible while still technically having letters for them.
many have tried to orthographic reform English into a language with consistent vowel spelling but what if we just gave up and went to an abjad instead
tbh the biggest problem with reforming English is that native English speakers are some of the most deliberately awkward and unpleasant people when it comes to language.
I say this as one. some of my best friends only speak English, etc. etc
sorry but never in my life have I been confused between 'sweety' and 'sweaty'. But also, my dialect distinguishes between 'fir' and 'fur', and I actually pronounce the letter 'r', and this seemingly makes me some kind of murlock untermenschen, so..
I’m pretty sure that’s about misspelling sweetie as sweaty, not being unable to distinguish the two when spoken
I still don't understand how it works? I always thought the 'misspelling sweetie as sweaty' thing was a meme a bit like 'pwn' and 'own' in that they were obviously different, but could be the result of typing too fast when trying to fire off an inept burn?
ah wait I get it- like sweaty pronounced like the ae in lead (as in the verb)
now I feel silly
please disregard my earlier comment. If you printed it out, please redact accordingly
Hey I think my dialect matches that description too! But also everyone tells me I have a crayon-crown merger lol
best defence is a good offence. accuse your friends and family of having a highly specific form of hearing loss.
They’re useless individually but highly regular in context because vowel shifts are highly regular in context. Sucks to be us, but even Hangul, the most brilliantly regular constructed writing system known to humankind, is no longer pronounced the way it’s spelled (and differently in North and South).
