English is a quirky little language, even for those whose native language is English. Why?
1. Homographs
Words that are spelled the same, often pronounced the same, but with entirely different meanings.
- Lead in your pencil and lead the parade.
- Bow on the gift and bow after the performance.
- Close the door and close not far.
- Tears you cry and tears in the paper.
2. Homophones
Words that sound the same, but are spelled differently with different meanings.
- Worn and Warn
- To, Two, Too
- Bear and Bare
- Here and Hear
- Led and Lead
- See and Sea
- And a bunch more.
3. Contronyms
Words that have two contradictory meanings.
- Finished as completed; Finished as done for.
- Bolt as in securing something; Bolt as fleeing.
- Give out as in providing for; Give out as to run out.
- Oversight as in looking after; Oversight as failing to notice.
- Sanction as in approving; Sanction as in boycotting.
4. Idioms
How can one figure out idioms since they cannot be taken literally?
- Pulling one’s leg
- It’s a piece of cake.
- To kill two birds with one stone.
- To bite the bullet.
- To wrap one’s head around something.
- HUH?
5. Rules with Mostly Exceptions
Like “I before E except after C or when sounds like A as in neighbor and weigh” — except for weird, protein, caffeine, codeine, seize, height, seismic. And on the other side, ancient, society, hacienda.
6. Silent Letters
- Why doesn’t pterodactyl start with T?
- Why doesn’t knife start with N?
- What is the T doing in listen?
- Why doesn’t autumn end with an M?
7. Irregular Words
We have nouns that are plural, but are not pluralized by adding an S after the last letter: children, women, men, candies, cacti, alumnae.
And irregular verbs are misused all the time – those whose past tense doesn’t simply add –ed:
- run, ran, have run
- set, set, and set
- think, thought, have thought
- drink, drank, have drunk
8. “Chameleon” Words
Some words change meaning depending on which syllable you stress:
- Content as in happy; Content as in what something contains
- Project as in something to do; Project as to throw.
- Object as in thing; Object as in to oppose.
9. Pronunciation Chaos
Through, thought, ouch, enough, trough, thorough — they all have ou. All pronounced differently.
Though, enough, height — all have gh. All pronounced differently.
Thank you for helping out with the information!!!!
Am I awakened or awoken? Seems like the usage is all over the place.
Well, I think it is awakened, but I do remember writing a blog post about this once.
My Middle English is rusty but I recall: awaken (v.) comes from Middle English awakenen, from Old English awæcnan (intransitive), “to spring into being, arise, originate,
I’ve also found: “Awaken” is the past participle of the verb “awake” and is used in the present perfect and past perfect tenses. For example, “I have awakened” or “I had awakened.” “Awoken” is a variant of “awaken” and is used in the same way, but primarily in British English.
Thank you! I would not be at all surprised if you speak Middle English!
This is, as usual, a great post.
Of course, many of these problems are caused by the way English has borrowed (stolen?) so many words from other languages but not bothered to change, for instance, the way they are modified for e.g. plurality or conjugation.
So ‘pterodactyl ‘ comes from the Greek pteron – wing.
‘Listen’ should actually be pronounced ‘list-en’ and comes from Middle English ‘to list’ (to listen)
As for the expressions, every language has these. ‘To pull your leg’ in Spanish is ‘to take your hair’ – how logical is that? ‘To kill two birds with one stone’ is ‘to hit two birds with one stone’ and so on.
Every language has its difficulties and peculiarities,
Thank you for your wisdom, Jags! Once again, I am impressed! You need to write me another guest post!!