5 Apr
2013
5 Apr
'13
10:39 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Scott Quinn
Sent: 05 April 2013 15:08
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: English spelling
**************************************
On Thu, 4 Apr 2013, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
a
A little stupid.. I know about the rules for
appending an S in the
right
place, I just
can't seem to master them.
> I thought that perhaps Swedish does not have such a concept but then
> I saw that he does speak of power supplieS and fanS; he even talks
> about making the CPU's pin compatible, although instead of multiple
> pins of multiple CPUs that seems to suggest making the (single) pin
> of a single CPU compatible with something...
English has inconsistent rules, and freely breaks them.
It seems to have more IRREGULAR conjugations, declensions, and plurals.
Can anyone explain why the 'I' is after the 'E' in "WEIRD"?
"I disconnected the speaker on all of the computers in the lab." does not
imply that they share a speaker. Should I have said that I disconnected
the "speakerS"? or maybe "the speaker on EACH computer"?
And, in this particular example, "pin compatible" (or
"pin-compatible") is commonly used adjective that is not plural, no matter
how many pins the
device has.
The object noun in the speaker sentence is the speaker, therefore if you
disconnected more than one it would be "speakers" regardless of how many
computers they were connected to. Same goes for the pin-compatible CPUs
- the noun is the CPU, therefore pin remains singular (even though you're
talking about multiple pins on multiple CPUs). Same logic that gives us
"attorneys-general" and "gins and tonic" and a whole lot of
confusion.
As for weird, I just tell the students it's a weird word.
Was it Bernard Shaw that threw away the rules he considered pointless and
archaic? I know about cummings and capitalization, but that does little to
make his poems easier to read or more comprehensible.
Here is a poem that was in a book that my wife used when she was learning
English. I love the way that words spelled differently at the end rhyme, and
the words that have the same ending don't rhyme.
When the English tongue we speak
Why is break not rhymed with weak?
Won't you tell me why it's true
We say sew, but also few?
And the maker of a verse
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard,
Cord is different from word,
Cow is cow, but low is low,
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose and dose and lose,
And think of goose and yet of choose,
Think of comb and tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll and home and some.
And since pay is rhymed with say,
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood and food and good;
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Why is it done, but gone and lone
Is there any reason known?
To sum it up, it seems to me
That sounds and letters don't agree.