Thursday, February 25, 2010

Keepin' It Real

So, as we already know, English is a crazy language. For example, take the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. For the most part, it's great, right? The first twenty-nine letters of the word- no problem. Supercalifragilisticexpialido is pronounced exactly how it looks. Go ahead, try it- I’ll wait.

See?

It's the cious that's the problem.

It should be written shus, right?

But, that's the wacky English language for you: a c that sounds like sh, and iou that makes the same sound as u. And, it doesn't stop there; English is full of letters that take on the sound of other letters and letters that are silent.

One of the worst offenders is words that end ough. Ough is funny in that not only is it full of silent letters, but it also is pronounced differently depending on the word in which it is found. For example, in the word dough, it sounds like an o; in tough, it sounds like uff; and in through, it sounds like ew.

Well, there are certain individuals out there who are sick of our letters trying to be something they are not. Instead of trying to be all fancy and French sounding, they just want our words to keep it real. Therefore, sometimes when I am grading a paper or reading an email, I run into these words:

Tuff

Ruff

Thru

Now, I totally appreciate the sentiment behind this "Keep It Real" campaign, but before we change the spelling of rough, tough and through, we should click on this link to watch a cautonairy tale by this wise man


to see what happens when keeping it real goes wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI2RT1zDVLw

8 comments:

Emily said...

Um, awesome.

Anonymous said...

You have a very interesting site here. Both creative and thought provoking.:-)

WalksLikeAnEgyptian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
WalksLikeAnEgyptian said...

I've read a month's worth of grammar lessons and it has to be said: I officially LOVE your blog.

10 points for the Chapelle video!

Missed Periods said...

WalksLikeAnEgyptian, thank you.

sunwarrior927 said...

i just have two words to say: GRAPE DRINK. Watch the clip on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UayQTu2kH-U

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