The incredible English language......

[poltr1]

....but does that mean it's not credible?

Flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.

Food, good, hood, mood, and wood don't rhyme.

Anal, banal, and canal don't rhyme either.

I've heard that English is one of the hardest languages to learn and master. I think one of the reasons why is that there are so many damn exceptions. Mnemonics like "I before E except after C" come to mind.

What exceptions drive you nuts? I always mix up -ance with -ence. In junior high, I lost a spelling bee on "incoherence".

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

"Food" and "mood"; and "good", "hood", and "wood", rhyme, respectively.

Ghoti! :-)

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

English spelling is often cited as the worst of any language that uses an alphabet (as opposed to something like Chinese). Of all languages that I know anything at all about, the only ones that seem to make less sense than English are the various Celtic ones (Gaelic, Welsh, etc.).

English also has a much larger vocabulary than most other languages, as I understand it. This makes it hard to truly master. This (and to a large extent the spelling thing as well) are because modern English developed by stealing loads of vocabulary from any other language it could find.

English grammar is actually relatively simple, though I imagine that someone who's not a native speaker must get thrown by how flexible words are. It's not normal to be able to use the same word as a verb, a noun, or an adjective.

[patoadam]

Other oo sounds: flood/blood, floor/door