English spelling seems so irregular because it preserves history instead of matching sound. Early on, this Germanic tongue absorbed Norse and French influences from invaders, and in the late 1400s, printing helped standardize early spellings just...
In her book, Canadian English: A Linguistic Reader, University of Toronto professor Elaine Gold writes extensively about the common Canadian discourse tag eh? This word can serve as a confirmation marker, much like the discourse tag right? The word...
Was English spelling standardized before the advent of the printing press? No, but there were some significant periods in history where spelling became a little more fixed. Among them are the replacing of the Runic alphabet with the Roman alphabet...
Joan grew up in Yorkshire, England, then moved to New Orleans, Louisiana. There she was surprised to hear some people use the term evening instead of afternoon to refer to “the period between noon and 5 p.m.” The word evening is used that way in...
Alex in Montreal wonders why his Canadian Armed Forces unit uses the British-style pronunciation lef-TEN-ant for lieutenant, while Americans usually say loo-TEN-ant. Both pronunciations trace to French before the word entered English, with the f...