I’m picking “Colonel” needs to be respelled to match how it’s pronounced.
Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?
Oh boy, a word wouldn’t be enough.
I would make English as consistent as Spanish is regarding phonetical consistency, or even more.
Oh, you have never seen this word ever before and you don’t know how to pronounce it? No worries, these universal rules will allow you just get it right, because letters always sound the same!
Fun fact, the Spanish X used to be pronounced like the Greek χ, which is why Meχico, Teχas and Oaχaca are pronounced the way they are now in English (formerly like a “kh” and now like a “ks”)
The only one they changed is the double l. ll to sounds like a y. But in some circles they consider that a seperate letter to the Spanish alphabet. Overall it is fairly consistent.
Even better, Spanish words are typically broken into two (or is it to or too) letter syllables.
I mean knowing romance languages makes spelling in English easy. Also knowing something about Greek and Latin. Understanding the root of a word etc makes it a lot easier.
Right about spelling. For a non-native, it becomes somewhat difficult when it is about the “right” pronunciation of the written language. There’s a lot of French influence for example. Now they have a lot of French words, some feel horribly mispronounced and some aren’t. And then there’s a lot of dialects so that mixing pronunciations can hardly be avoided.
English is pretty good (generally) at doing the same thing.
Y’all are just bringing up words that English stole from other languages.
You can use phonetics to figure out how to pronounce most words in English.
The amount of words that are not “stolen” from other languages is neglible…
Cat from German Katze, from Latin catta
Car(t) from German Karren
Kitchen grom German Küche
Bike/Bicycle from French bicycle
Leaf from German Laub
Beef, mutton, pigeon from French boeuf, mouton, pigeon
Cow, sheep, dove from German Kuh, Schaf, Taube
Computer from Latin computare
Sun and moon from German Sonne and Mond
Lunatic from Latina luna
Death from German Tod
Snug from Norse snøggr
Funny from Swedish fånig
Breeze from Spanish brisa
Ranch from Spanish rancha
Brave from Italian bravo
Arcade from Italian arcata
Dildo from Italian diletto
…
You may like this essay on why English has weird spellings. Think technological timings.
https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-the-english-spelling-system-so-weird-and-inconsistent
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
–James D. Nicoll
