Agreed. Back then, dictionaries were basically suggestions and fiction. People only really started caring about modern consistent spelling relatively recently (19th century), but it’s assumed that’s always been the case. People used to just make up words as it made sense, like colour. Someone just made up that word and now we all use it, but God forbid anyone get creative nowadays! There’s been dozens of both successful and failed “spelling reforms”. Some people just decided on this one spelling and we all now pretend it was gospel.
Then the grammar Nazis come out of the woodwork, as if they cannot possibly understand anything you wrote, because of this one small error. It’s not helpful or interesting behaviour, it’s like pointing out a smudge on an artwork.
Most other languages on Earth have an intuitive way of spelling and sounding out letters, with actual rules, to the point where you can understand how to say something just by reading it. English has no such feature, despite some efforts. Every word is it’s own unique creature with it’s own unique spelling and pronunciation and history.
All the helpful features of English to help you know how to pronounce something have been stripped out to make it “simplified”. Ever wonder why they’re called “simplified English dictionaries”? Because there used to be other kinds of English and dictionaries. Because it spells it “naive” instead of “naïve”. The extra dot on the vowel used to mean that you say the vowels separately instead of smooshed together; na-i-ve.
Fucking dogshit language. It’s my first language, but I found my second and third languages easier to learn and more logical and intuitive. Now that’s saying something.
Also since you asked, capital letters were actually invented by the Romans, as a helpful optional feature to make things easier to read. They thought it looked cool to have Important Things be different.
Agreed. Back then, dictionaries were basically suggestions and fiction. People only really started caring about modern consistent spelling relatively recently (19th century), but it’s assumed that’s always been the case. People used to just make up words as it made sense, like colour. Someone just made up that word and now we all use it, but God forbid anyone get creative nowadays! There’s been dozens of both successful and failed “spelling reforms”. Some people just decided on this one spelling and we all now pretend it was gospel.
Then the grammar Nazis come out of the woodwork, as if they cannot possibly understand anything you wrote, because of this one small error. It’s not helpful or interesting behaviour, it’s like pointing out a smudge on an artwork.
Most other languages on Earth have an intuitive way of spelling and sounding out letters, with actual rules, to the point where you can understand how to say something just by reading it. English has no such feature, despite some efforts. Every word is it’s own unique creature with it’s own unique spelling and pronunciation and history.
All the helpful features of English to help you know how to pronounce something have been stripped out to make it “simplified”. Ever wonder why they’re called “simplified English dictionaries”? Because there used to be other kinds of English and dictionaries. Because it spells it “naive” instead of “naïve”. The extra dot on the vowel used to mean that you say the vowels separately instead of smooshed together; na-i-ve.
Fucking dogshit language. It’s my first language, but I found my second and third languages easier to learn and more logical and intuitive. Now that’s saying something.
Also since you asked, capital letters were actually invented by the Romans, as a helpful optional feature to make things easier to read. They thought it looked cool to have Important Things be different.