Yes, English can be weird

[csziggy]

It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.

Taken from this product: https://www.etsy.com/no-en/listing/528361964/english-can-be-weird-coffee-mug-grammar?fbclid=IwAR2qyUU5hu0jr-tyjEfs618oFBCtsp26oz0crP4psD4YfwOZBdOA1ADkFlM

[LakeArenal]

1. And

How come we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?

[Borchkins]

2. And

Why do we bake cookies instead of cooking them?

[guillaumeb]

3. And the lack of consistency in pronouncing words is insane. eom

[csziggy]

5. Some time ago I read an article that said that is because of British regional differences

That the people who originally began compiling words with spellings and pronunciation took their examples from different places in England (and probably Scotland and Wales). That meant that "tough" and "cough" came from one area while "through" and "thought" were from another place.

Rather than trying to arrive at a consistent spelling for the different sounds, they "celebrated" the variations in British usage which is now preserved in our widely differing ways to say and spell the same sounds.

I don't have a reference for the article I read this in. It's been decades and I'm not sure it would even be on the internet. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the variations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#Different_spellings_for_different_pronunciations

[guillaumeb]

6. Very interesting.

And French does have its inconsistencies as well, partly due to the 2 main branches of the language.

[Newest Reality]

4. A comedic take on that:

[CTyankee]

8. How old is that clip? Its humor is so out of date and horribly sexist...I cringed and turned it off.

Ugh

[Newest Reality]

9. It is old...

So, I guess it is very easy to take it out of context and have that severe a reaction.

I understand. It was not meant to offend you.

[CTyankee]

11. sometimes it's a good idea to review the older clips of "humor" because you run across so much

sexist stuff it's unusable. It isn't "out of context" so much as "replete with" sexism. Like old clips attempting humor with white actors in blackface. There was a time when that was considered "not meant to offend" anyone.

[Newest Reality]

12. I will note that.

Thanks. Again, I am sorry that it provoked such a reaction for you and I fully respect your viewpoint on that. Your response sets it straight, however.

[LakeArenal]

7. And what about "pretty"

When one says, It’s pretty good. It’s pretty hard. It’s pretty close.

Does that make sense?

Sometimes if you keep saying a word over and over it doesn’t even sound like a word.

[Danascot]

13. Sort of like fairly

Fairly close, fairly cold, fairly certain. Maybe because fair and pretty were once synonyms?

[gratuitous]

14. "Pretty" and "little", twin banes of Harold Ross' existence

Harold Ross was the editor of New Yorker magazine for decades. He was a man writers loved to hate, even as they improved their prose under his editing. Ross was the one who hounded Dorothy Parker for a casual while she was on her honeymoon in Paris. She finally wired back, "Too fucking busy, and vice versa" before Ross left her alone.

Ross had a real animus to the words "pretty" and "little" often remarking as he read a draft, "There's that damn 'pretty' again!" For Ross, these words just filled space and didn't add to the reader's understanding of what the writer was trying to convey. James Thurber was a writer and cartoonist for the magazine, close friends with Ross, but not immune from his vinegar.

On one occasion, Thurber wrote an architectural review of a new building in Manhattan, deliberately inserting the sentence, "The building is pretty ugly and a little big for its surroundings." After he turned in his copy, Thurber reported that Ross stomped down the hall and stuck his head into Thurber's office and "made a pretty ugly sound."

[Sentath]

10. Ghastly ( ;

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=29919