Re: English diglossia (was Re: retroflex consonants)

It doesn't take a year to learn all those words.  Most of them are short,
are irregular in large groups, and anyway once you start reading with any
kind of speed at all, you're not sounding them out anymore, you see them as
symbols for their concepts.  Haven't you ever tried that "count the 'f's"
email, where everyone misses the "of"s the first time around?  They all say
the word correctly, they all know what it means -- the letters are
irrelevant.  I'm okay with that, and "of" was one of the first words my two
next-youngest sisters learned to read.  I don't think most of this is a
problem for native speakers who're exposed to their own language enough.

BTW, "antidisestablishmentarianism" is almost phonetic (there's "ian" which
could get confused, I suppose), and one of the biggest words I've ever
sounded-out-and-figured-out-the-meaning of, before hearing it spoken.
And... learning little words that are spelled irregularly helps make bigger
words easier.  Though I can't offhand think of any small words where "tune"
sounds like "tchoon..."

Sarah Marie Parker-Allen
lloannna@surfside.net
http://www.geocities.com/lloannna.geo
http://lloannna.blogspot.com

"I will never buy an apple from peddlers plying their craft in remote places
where the customer base could not possibly support a full-time merchant." --
Rules for the Hero's True Love

> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of Tristan
> Becoz(?) it completely avoids aul that hassle ov having(havving?) to
> lern irregular spellings. If yoo donte hav too spend a year lerning how
> too spell 'all', 'were' and 'word', yoo can spend it lerning how to
> spell 'contrary', 'unfortunately' and 'antidisestablishmentarian' (or
> whatever it is).
>
---
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