“Queue” is spelled the stupidest way possible.
“Restaurant” gets me sometimes. It seems like the “u” should go after the second “a”. Or maybe omitted altogether, but certainly not after the first “a”.
Amen. I want to pronounce it “kwee-wee.”
Yup. I rarely get it right the first time.
QUEUE:
A word that doesn’t need 80% of its letters.
I agree with almost every one of the above observations, but the word that continues to confuse me to this day is “parallel.”
We have “bell” and “smell” and “well” and so on, all showing that a word ending in that sound gets a double-L at the end. Then we have this word about straight lines that don’t meet; it rhymes perfectly with those others and we . . . put . . . the double-L . . . in . . . the middle ?
But it is kind of appropriate that ‘parallel’ has a couple letters in the middle that are, um… oh, never mind.
I don’t believe I’ve ever looked at it that way. You’ve given me something to think about.
Well, the double Ls are parallel regardless of where they are.
Not if they’re in an elliptic space.
Prowess. To me it always looked like it should be "prowness"; you know, like darkness or slowness. “-ness” being a modifier meaning that it’s something possessed by the subject.
As a kid I even pronounced it like that until corrected, and the correct version still looks and sounds wrong to me.
Goverment, Government. Pshaw. I think the first “n” should be repealed. My woeful typing fingers approve. Pronounced Gov er ment … not Gov VERN ment.
But they govern.
Don’t even get me going on ‘February’.
Ditch the middle “R” already. Everybody else does; come on in, the water’s fine.
You pronunce something using its correct pronounciation. Er, wait, other way around.
Look, I get that the -ation suffix messes with the final e; that’s no problem. But the u is all the way back in a different syllable. It should be sufficiently shielded from the suffix.
You have your colonels and lieutenants…
Wednesday has an extra letter or two as well.
Huh. I always think it’s prowress or proweress. I hear the second R in my head, even though I don’t say it. I guess I presume the second R gets dropped, ala surprise.
Though I may also associate it with the word power.
Oh, and I always spell it judgement. I prefer to keep spelling rules consistent in English if possible.
I disagree that it’s a UK spelling. I think it’s becoming more and more common in the US. And, if, as @Aspenglow says, it’s catching on even with lawyers, notoriously some of the last hold outs, then I think the 1-E spelling’s days are numbered.
And I wouldn’t like my spelling changed without my acknowledgement.
Nah, it’s just that most of us never lernt how to spel so good in the first place.
Well, it’s in my US English spelling dictionary–the one that comes with Windows and is used in Chrome. I didn’t add it. Your lernt and spel have a red line under them, as does centre and litre. But judgement and acknowledgement do not.
And Microsoft gets mad if you spell naive without the diareses. Or facade without the cedilla. So their spellings aren’t exactly the newest.