this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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I always want to pronounce the American versions of these words phonetically when I see them.
And what the heck is going on with the US pronunciation of “buoy”? None of those syllables are in that word.
Buo-y
Apparently we have the Dutch to blame for that one, as the verb form is apparently descended from Spanish.
I still don't understand the English insistence on borrowing words from other languages, yet refusal to standardize spelling into ways that actually make sense within the language.
So I still blame English for being silly with their transliteration.
Blame the great vowel shift.
But also, English spelling can't standardize because English pronunciation isn't standard. West Coast vs Midwest vs South vs East Coast have vastly different accents. Any spelling reform that makes English phonetic for one would be wrong for the others.
And it keeps changing! People keep moving and interacting with other languages, adding and dropping words and accents over time.
Blame the French actually, they invaded and screwed everything up beyond repair.
Funny thing about those "French" people.
William the Bastard of Normandy was the grandson of a fellow named Rollo the Viking.
Rollo had conquered the French northern coast and wrecked so much shit the French king just offered to make him a vassal, and give him more land in the process, if he protected the land he'd taken from other Viking raiders. This area would develop a hybrid culture from the mixing of the Germanic invaders and French population.
English, already a bastardized Germanic language, combined from the spoken languages of Germanic invaders who would come to be known as Anglo-Saxons and the native population, got further hybridized by a French Viking who actually spoke a French-Germanic dialect known as Norman.
Tl;Dr
Sea Germans hate linguistic purity, and English's problems are all their fault.
ʤəst stɑːt ˈjuːzɪŋ aɪ-piː-eɪ
Do it backwards, pronounce the British versions