Random Interstitial Filler Thread – Blaming the French Edition

Changes To French Spelling Make Us Wonder: Why Is English So Weird?

The government has made a point of calling the changes "rectifications" rather than reforms, and on the whole they're pretty minor. A few words like "le week-end" and "le strip-tease" will lose their hyphens. The word for onion, "oignon," will have to give up its silent i.

But what people have gotten most worked up about is the elimination of many of the circumflexes. That's the pointy little hat that sits on top of vowels in words like "hôtel" and "tête-à-tête," marking the spot where a letter was lost sometime in the past.

The changes are supposed to make the written language easier to learn, but there are too few of them to make much of a difference. Mastering written French is still going to be as much of a slog as it's always been. Bear in mind that this is a language that has eight different words all pronounced as "o," each of them with its own distinctive spelling.

The Story of the Umlaut

On God, Politeness, and the T-V Distinction

I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.

-- Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

posted by Maetenloch at 02:59 PM

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