"Why do we make distinctions in spelling but not in speech?" Topic

For instance….

You can come TO the party TOO if you bring TWO girls.

or

THEY'RE over THERE with THEIR friends.

You can say either sentence without inflection of the words and get the meaning. Yet we spell each differently as if it somehow adds something to the meaning. Why do we do this? Do all languages do this?

EDIT
Sorry…corrected!

That was deliberate. Right?

And it does make a difference. To, too and two all have distinct meanings when written.

You can come TO the party TO you bring TO girls.

is nonsense.

U cn cum 2 teh party 2 u bring 2 grrlz.

Better?

Allen

ys thx

Now that's just homophonicphobic!

Two girls love me longer time?

And can I tow two girls to the party, too?

Two girls love me longer time?

And can I tow two girls to the party, too?

Yes to both. But could you keep up with two too?

Would the two both be wearing tutus, too?

My brain now hurts more than it did with the "Go Away" rule.

Their, they're everything will be OK critter…

Look it up here
link
And of course it's not so in many languages, but of those that use an alphabet, Serbian has the best system, each letter corresponds to one sound.

Believe it or not, the majority of people do exhibit subtle differences in the way they pronounce homonyms. Minor variations in vowel length and tension, the degree of aspiration, devoicing of certain consonants, blah, blah, blah. You don't notice it yourself (unless you've had some linguistic training) and others don't notice it either (probably) but they subconsciously register the differences and, along with context, understand your intent.

Our spelling is, of course, archaic. We used to pronounce the /w/ in "two" and the /k/ in "know" and "knee" and every /gh/. We keep it because it is a neutral reference. Were we to adopt a spelling reform, upon whose pronunciation would we base it? Consider the simple word "car", then listen to examples spoken by natives of Boston, Dallas, Chicago, New Orleans, Edinburgh, Sydney, London, and Manchester. Extrapolate across the breadth of the English language and cower at the implications.

Let's Face It – English Is A Crazy Language:
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.--
English muffins weren't invented in England nor French fries in France.--
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its words , we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?--
One goose, 2 geese . So one moose, 2 meese ?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language
do people recite at a play and play at a recital?--
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?--
Have noses that run and feet that smell?--
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

For more

link

I thought the French did invent Pommes Frites?

Pommes Frites _ Belgium

No egg in eggplant? No eggplant in English, you mean.

Here in the mother country, we call them aubergines. :)

The original eggplants were small white ovals. The ones you see today are somewhat divergent from the original, but that doesn't make them no longer eggplants, just as the fact that there are many breeds of canines doesn't mean they aren't all dogs.

I think the problem lies in lazy pronunciation.

"TWO" needs to be pronounced like it's spelled. That's only fair, particularly to Johnnie Foreigner.

"To" needs to be pronounced "tuh", as in "I am going tuh duh dump, tuh duh dump, tuh duh dump dump dump.

That leaves "too" to be pronounced like it looks.

Here in the mother country, we call them aubergines. :)

Well now that just makes some of the Victorian porn I have read very confusing.

Of course in the middle of all this you also have the words that are spelt the same and pronounced differently.

router (Norm Abram's favourite tool vs the network device – certainly in UK English) for instance.

There's plenty more but my addled brain can't remember them at the moment.

The one I've never fully understood is the British pronunciation of Lieutenant. How does that spelling become "lef-ten-uh'nt"?