The Irish only continue their defiantly non-phonetic spelling to fuck with the English.
FACT
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“Irish Gaelic is a language in which spelling and pronunciation give the impression of having been devised by separate committees, meeting in separate rooms, while implacably divided over some deep semantic issue.”
– Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue
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Also, “f” is pronounced “v”, “ff” is “f”, “dd” is “th”, and “ll” is a sound best left to the experts, so as not to spit all over your listeners. 
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I think the Normans made them do it. We otherwise saddled with it still would be.
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Yeah, I’m aware of that program. It’s affectionately thought of as pointing out the juicy sweetcorn while desperately trying to ignore the enormous turd it’s embedded in.
How is “Kopcial” pronounced? “Cop-shul”? “Cop-see-el”? “Cop-sy-ul”? “Co-shul”? “Cock-small”? Why doesn’t the hillbilly change the spelling to match how it sounds?
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Jonathan Meades doesn’t get enough love. A sublime broadcaster.
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No one’s mentioned St. John yet. Now someone has.
Edit: Rats, missed it.
This limerick makes perfect sense if you know the correct pronunciation of the surname ‘Menzies’:
A lively young damsel named Menzies
Inquired: “Do you know what this thenzies?”
Her aunt, with a gasp,
Replied: “It’s a wasp,
And you’re holding the end where the stenzies.”
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See post number 54 above (sorry)
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Yes, the theory that English is a creole of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French – or, as someone put it, “the result of Norman soldiers trying to pick up Anglo-Saxon barmaids”.
There’s the competing theory that English is a creole of Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, courtesy of the Danish settlements in Yorkshire etc.: there was a significant similarity in vocabulary – e.g. “shirt” and “skirt”, derived respectively from the Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse words for the same garment, a knee-length unisex tunic – but not so much in grammar.
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Having lived in both Yorkshire and Oslo I can attest to that (though the English in Norway was easier to understand).
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Horsefeathers!
(pronounced ‘horzze’)
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Siobhan! Siobhan! Siobhan!
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Pronounced Glasgow, by any chance…?
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As seen on
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Why not both?
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Word origins don’t really tell us much about modern pronunciation. “Good bye” comes from “God be with ye,” but we can’t use that to support pronouncing good bye “God be.”
It may be that Worcester’s spelling coincidentally aligned with its reduced pronunciation; I’m not really finding much on when it commonly became pronounced “Worster” and why. But it’s certain that adding a “sess” or “chess” syllable is an error. Interpreting it as “worce” + “ster” reflects its current pronunciation.
Being part Irish, I know that name is pronounced ‘Chevonne’, but I think the way it looks would sound way cooler; Sy-O-Bonn.
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A few years ago, an Irish mate drunkenly ranted at me about how English spelling makes no sense.
Her name was Niamh.
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