Re: [Epic] Erik Rutins Campaign Rules

From: <duckrvr_at_...>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 09:07:17 -0500

At 08:47 PM 6/20/97 -0700, you wrote:

>> Do really think that English is not easy? If you were French, Spanish
>> or Italian you wouldn't say that.
>
>Au Contraire,
>
>Consider the whord Ghoti - pronounced the same as Fish.
>
>Gh as in enouGH
>o as in wOmen
>ti as is acTIon

Oh, stop. That's not pronounced "fish" and never will be. There are a lot
of exceptions, but they follow certain patterns.

Aside from Spanish, every Western language that has been written since the
Middle Ages (all of them that I know of) has many spelling exceptions. It's
called the "Great Vowel Shift" and it happened all across Europe. In
England it happened sometime between Middle English and Modern English.
Ever read Chaucer in the original? Everything was phonetic. By the time
you get to Shakespear, many of the words are spelled similarly to Chaucer's
time (and today's English is also), but they are pronounced almost as they
are today. You can almost read Chaucer as it is written if you know modern
English, aside from vocabulary differences. Spain was just lucky enough
that their shift mostly occured before the printing press turned spelling
static (and scholars worked to adjust it afterwards).

Whan that April with its shoures soote
The drout of March hath perced to the roote (I think I got all the spellings.)

tr:
When April with its sweet showers (noun/adjective reversed, as in French)
The drought of March hath peirced to the root. (object/verb reversed, as
poetic convention)

Easy, and usually obvious (soote=sweet is not, but it's close . . .)
On the other hand the pronunciation . . .

wahn thaht Ahpreel with its shorres soata
the drote of March hath pear-sid to the roata

 . . . bears little resemblance to today's.

Temp
Received on Fri Jun 20 1997 - 14:07:17 UTC