# General irregularities in the english language **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 19, 2009, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923 "2009-08-19T04:34:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/21 "2009-08-19T14:22:54Z")
English words are usually spelled they way the were pronounced – _at the time they entered the language_. It’s the pronunciation that has changed. “Knight,” for instance, was originally pronounced with all letters having value – the hard k, the gh for a velar fricative. “Phonetic” is a special case, but the “ph” for “f” was a convention borrowed from French, which borrowed from Latin, which derived from the Greek phi. Regardless of how the Greeks pronounced it, it became pronounced as an “f” long before it entered English. The purpose was to indicate that the root word had a phi. Language evolves; it is not planned. There are always idioms and odd constructions; it’s just that English – which borrows more freely than any other language – has more of them. It’s the price you pay for a bigger vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/22 "2009-08-19T15:15:07Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > “I could care less” and “I couldn’t care less” mean the same thing. That’s news to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure “I could care less” means the opposite of “I couldn’t care less”. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/23 "2009-08-19T15:41:24Z")
Ooh, ooh, I got one. Why do we park in a driveway and drive in a parkway? Bet you never thought of that, did you Cecil, huh, huh, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/24 "2009-08-19T17:26:01Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > “I could care less” and “I couldn’t care less” mean the same thing. But awesome and awful don’t! ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/25 "2009-08-19T19:10:34Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > So why isn’t it “lithp”? 😛 Among other things, because the phonology of English doesn’t allow for that. (Seriously; if the word had started as “lithp”, it would soon become “lisp” anyway, just because the latter’s consonant cluster coda is so close to that of the former but so much more natural in English.) ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/26 "2009-08-20T04:02:54Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > English words are usually spelled they way the were pronounced – _at the time they entered the language_. It’s the pronunciation that has changed. “Knight,” for instance, was originally pronounced with all letters having value – the hard k, the gh for a velar fricative. So does that mean Monty Python had it right? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/27 "2009-08-20T04:20:21Z")
> [@groman](#): > > That’s news to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure “I could care less” means the opposite of “I couldn’t care less”. Please explain that. “I could care less” doesn’t make much sense at all unless it it expanded into its full form which is something like “I could care less about this but I can’t imagine it now”. “I couldn’t care less” is self-explanatory. They are not opposites and I have never heard of a listener that didn’t consider them to be interchangeable. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/28 "2009-08-20T05:09:20Z")
> [@JeremyInIdaho](#): > > 4: Why does hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (I’ll admit, I had to copy/paste that one) mean fear of long words? Once again, using something that someone can’t really say to describe their condition, seems cruel to me. Some of those phobia names are jokes, see also: Aibophobia - fear of palindromes. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/29 "2009-08-20T05:10:20Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Please explain that. “I could care less” doesn’t make much sense at all unless it it expanded into its full form which is something like “I could care less about this but I can’t imagine it now”. “I couldn’t care less” is self-explanatory. They are not opposites and I have never heard of a listener that didn’t consider them to be interchangeable. Except as a form of misguidedly pedantic willful delusion. To which the response must be stressed: no one likes misguidedly pedantic willful delusion… ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/30 "2009-08-20T05:19:26Z")
> [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](#): > > So does that mean Monty Python had it right? Not exactly. The word “knight” was, way back when, pronounced as /knixt/; that is, an initial consonant cluster /kn/, followed by an “ee” sound, followed by a voiceless velar fricative (as in the end of “Bach” or “loch”, natively pronounced), followed by a /t/. So not really “kuh-nigget”. More like “kuhneeKt”, though that’s also not quite it. There wasn’t really any “uh” between the starting “k” and “n” (just as there’s not really any uh" between the starting “s” and “n” in “sneak”), and the capitalized “K” near the end isn’t really a /k/ sound but another close one, related to /k/ in a similar way as /s/ is related to /t/. Although, I also find some sources saying the vowel was that of “sit” rather than “seat” (just as Monty Python would have it. :)). Perhaps it changed over time even before the Great Vowel Shift took it to its current value. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/31 "2009-08-20T05:32:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > _English does not borrow from other languages. English follows other languages into dark alleys, coshes them over the head, and rifles through their pockets for loose vocabulary._ 😃 I love that quote, and suspect plenty of others came here with the thought of posting it in mind. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/32 "2009-08-20T05:44:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > To take this seriously: > 1: “Abbreviated” is a long word because it’s not needed very much. All the short words got used for things like “man” and “house” that get used a lot. Seriously? Whoosh? ---
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/33 "2009-08-20T06:29:51Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Please explain that. “I could care less” doesn’t make much sense at all unless it it expanded into its full form which is something like “I could care less about this but I can’t imagine it now”. “I couldn’t care less” is self-explanatory. They are not opposites and I have never heard of a listener that didn’t consider them to be interchangeable. That was my point. “I could care less” is not a very commonly used expression, and I’ve only heard it used in two contexts: 1. Somebody meant “I couldn’t care less” and misspoke 2. Somebody used it as an answer to “Do you care about \_\_\_?” with the same intonation somebody would say “I could go for some cake” and it meant that they do, in fact, care about \_\_\_. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/34 "2009-08-20T06:54:40Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > 😃 I love that quote, and suspect plenty of others came here with the thought of posting it in mind. Except everyone forgets to credit James Nicoll for it. Although he didn’t say it in exactly those words. About three quarters of English vocabulary is borrowed from other languages. That’s a high percentage, but there are a few languages that exceed that. I believe Albanian is one of them. English has borrowed from over 200 different languages, and I expect that’s a record. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/35 "2009-08-20T10:56:49Z")
Inconsistencies exist because there is no practical mechanism to create a language de novo and enforce its use among the masses. English (unlike Esperanto, for instance) arises and evolves as a cobbling together of what the polloi already use. If expert prescriptionists could be placed in charge of designing language, and enough pedants could be given authority to patrol and dragoon proper use, inconsistencies could be minimized. From what I have seen of the ability to manage the masses, it’s a lost cause. They are simulataneously behind in their knowledge of existing prescriptions and ahead in their invention of the next ones. That’s why.\* \*I am assuming the OP’s last line was invoking me. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/36 "2009-08-20T14:48:37Z")
Even if you could somehow get everyone in some place to use an artificial language that you had just created with no grammatical irregularities, the language would slowly begin to change anyway. All languages are always in a process of changing. Within a few hundred years it would have many irregularities. Within a thousand years or so it wouldn’t be possible to tell that it had once been an artificial language with no irregularities. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/37 "2009-08-20T15:09:32Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > “I could care less” and “I couldn’t care less” mean the same thing. So do “flammable” and “inflammable”. > [@My Linguistics Professor](#): > > Languages do not become simpler. They exchange one form of senseless complexity for another. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8491ac/32.png) [@Fake\_Tales\_of\_San\_Francisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fake_Tales_of_San_Francisco)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/38 "2009-08-20T15:23:32Z")
Whenever I hear ‘I could care less’ I always wonder why the speaker cares too much, when they obviously mean the opposite. I don’t know if it’s just England and Australia (Two places I’ve lived in for an extended period of time), but I’ve never heard anyone consider them interchangeable. I didn’t know ‘I could care less’ was a shortened form of something else. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/39 "2009-08-20T15:37:24Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Even if you could somehow get everyone in some place to use an artificial language that you had just created with no grammatical irregularities, the language would slowly begin to change anyway. All languages are always in a process of changing. Within a few hundred years it would have many irregularities. Within a thousand years or so it wouldn’t be possible to tell that it had once been an artificial language with no irregularities. I thought the general view was the languages tend to become more regular? Especially with modern communication and standardised forms of languages. True, new irregularities do occasionally arise, but not enough to affect the trend. I can’t think of a modern language that is less regular than its ancestors. Newly coined verbs in English are almost always regular. I read the other day that every verb added to Spanish in the last hundred years has been an -ar verb. Etc. I think it might also depend on how well designed the artificial language was. Esperanto, designed by an amateur before modern linguistics was even established, would perhaps be prone to irregularities if it became widely spoken. I can’t see everybody sticking to the rigid “estas/estos/estis” format for such common words as “is” and “have”, for example. It might be worth building in a little planned irregularity to allow very common words to roll off the tongue more easily. A lot of Esperanto words are real mouthfuls. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923/40 "2009-08-20T15:52:53Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > I thought the general view was the languages tend to become more regular? Especially with modern communication and standardised forms of languages. True, new irregularities do occasionally arise, but not enough to affect the trend. I can’t think of a modern language that is less regular than its ancestors. There are two opposing trends here. Regularity is preferred for its own sake, but irregularity comes in because of opposing requirements. In English, spelling at first matched pronunciation, but often pronunciation changes (the “knight” example already given illustrates this), and sometimes spelling changes (e.g., “debt” used to be be spelled “det”, following pronunciation and its derivation from French, but the “b” was inserted from the more remote Latin “debitum”). Another way that you can get irregular spelling/pronunciation is with words derived from foreign languages. For example, in English the normal pattern is for words ending in “-ime” to rhyme with “dime” or “time”. However, “anime” doesn’t, because it comes from Japanese, where the final “e” is pronounced, and the pronunciation of “i” is not affected by the final “e”. So, regularity is added, and at the same time irregularity is added. Whether a language as a whole become more or less irregular is another question. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/general-irregularities-in-the-english-language/506923.md?page=3)