१२ जानेवारी, २०२२

"British users of a viral internet word puzzle were up in arms this morning after the American spelling of [I'M NOT TELLING] was revealed as an answer...."

"There was yet more discord when Americans started referring to English as 'British English.' The anger was perhaps all the more intense because the designer of the game is British... Americans omit the u in words such as colour, honour, humour, labour, neighbour and splendour.... Instead of our –re spellings, Americans go to the theater, eat more fiber and wield a saber.... Double consonants are very confusing between the two conventions. Americans do not double consonants in some past participles (eg we are dishevelled, but they are disheveled). However, they do so in some infinitices (eg to appal is English, but it is to appall in the US).... Noah Webster, the American lexicographer, sometimes dropped the silent e which came from French 'loan words.' This could also involve dropping an extra consonant. For instance, grille became grill, annexe became annex, gramme became gram and tonne became ton... A number of 
'simplifications' in American English have appeared in common usage in the UK. We may still cash cheques rather than checks but we don’t have 'get out of gaol free' cards, while some have been known to plow through the snow and others complain of a chilly draft...."

From "Wordle puzzle provokes war of words with American spelling." That's at a news site that calls itself "The Times" that I'm more aware than usual would probably not appreciate my calling it "The London Times."

"Infinitices" — Is that a word or a typo? It's not in the OED, and they do seem to be trying to say "infinitives."

It took me half a minute to understand what was meant "some have been known to plow through the snow and others complain of a chilly draft." It means that the traditional British spelling would be "plough" and "draught."

९६ टिप्पण्या:

Clyde म्हणाले...

While the site is hosted on a British domain, I believe that Mr. Wardle lives in NYC, if the article I read about him was correct.

Leland म्हणाले...

I bet word correct is at the centre of this.

mccullough म्हणाले...

The Brits also mispronounce harassment and advertisement.

rehajm म्हणाले...

The British/US spelling crisis regularly rears its ugly head on Countdown. It's always depressing for Susie to have to break the news...

The Drill SGT म्हणाले...

It was their language first

Clyde म्हणाले...

As George Bernard Shaw said: "England and America are two countries separated by a common language.”

rehajm म्हणाले...

There was yet more discord when Americans started referring to English as 'British English.'

They get nutters about soccer and left hand drive and that whole Declaration of Independence thing, too...

gilbar म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
gilbar म्हणाले...

is it OUR fault that the stupid brits can't spell english?
Jesus GOD! have you ever heard them try to speak it?

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

Well, this post was enough to help me guess what the 4th letter was! So I got it in 3. I think I'll switch to hard mode.

Kylos म्हणाले...

I solved in three before seeing this post!

rehajm म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
rehajm म्हणाले...

Wordle 207 5/6*

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…not a good day for me…

gspencer म्हणाले...

"There was yet more discord when Americans started referring to English as 'British English'"

A first-world problem if ever there was one.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

@rehajm

That's the first time I've ever seen an image in the comments. Didn't think that was possible here.

rehajm म्हणाले...

That's the first time I've ever seen an image in the comments. Didn't think that was possible here.

Cool huh?

Kylos म्हणाले...

They’re actually special Unicode characters like emojis. 😀

Wordle 207 3/6

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Craig Howard म्हणाले...

It was their language first

Hey! My ancestors came from England in the 1600’s at a time when we all spoke the same version of English.

A century later, the Brits took it upon themselves to “refine” the language which consisted mainly in trying to make it sound more French thus the long “a” and the nasals. Along the way they adopted frenchified spellings, too: colour for couleur.

They can be kooky, those Brits.

Kevin म्हणाले...

Ok but we just have to agree never to discuss aluminiuminiuminium or however it is they pronounce it

Kevin म्हणाले...

I was in the UK for nearly a month and it's taken me months relearn not to respond to every sentence everyone says to me with "perfect" or "brilliant," and not to say "sorry" for nearly every action

John henry म्हणाले...

I blame Noah Webster.

In a college philosophy class my professor once went off on Webster and how much damage he did to the English language.

I recall little of that rant almost 50 years later. I do recall that the word "depot" and its pronunciation particularly annoyed him for reasons that probably made no sense at the time and I've now long forgotten

John LGBTQBNY Henry

rehajm म्हणाले...

Yah, Wordle share is a quick way to tweet your solves without excess spoilage. It’s just simple unicode so it works in the comments.

More useful than a row of eggplants? Discuss.

rehajm म्हणाले...

That's the first time I've ever seen an image in the comments

I feel like the tool monkey in 2001

Kevin म्हणाले...

Not to just pick on the UK folks the whole time either. Say the name "Irene" to a European person and watch them boil.

I have to vote with the Euros on that one. One pronunciation is beautiful and sophisticated, and the other is like getting hit in the ears with a crowbar

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

You can post results? Hmm..

Wordle 207 3/6*

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Well look at that. I won't do this again though. Those colored squares are already polluting my FB page. I don't need to see them everywhere.

John henry म्हणाले...

 Craig Howard said...

Hey! My ancestors came from England in the 1600’s at a time when we all spoke the same version of English.

Not hardly, Craig. Regional dialects in England and the US could be mutually unintelligible right up to the 1950s or so.

Still can be difficult to follow accents and phrasing from one area to another in the USA even in 2022

Original Mike म्हणाले...

"'British English."

chuckle

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

"Wourdleu puuzzleu prouvoukeus waur ouf wourds wiuth Aumeuriucaun speulliung."

I hope that keeps them happy.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

That's the first time I've ever seen an image in the comments.

He did it the other day, they're emojis 🎂 or some such.

Copy/paste/paste:

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Michael K म्हणाले...

Tonne is not the same word as ton. It is a metric tonne or 1,000 kilograms.

charis म्हणाले...

I went to a wedding of a British groom and American bride who now make their home in the US. At the reception, the groom made a toast, saying to his bride, “I will be dropping a lot of ‘u’s, but I will never drop ‘you’.” It was very sweet.

tcrosse म्हणाले...

The Brits (and Canadians) also are civilised rather than civilized. They prefer the S rather than the Zed.

Clyde म्हणाले...

Even the colored squares could be a hint if you know that the person habitually uses the same seed word each day.

Iman म्हणाले...

I dare not say it… oh, damnitall… these British poncey hairdressers can just stick it in their bottoms.

Temujin म्हणाले...

If ever there was an exemplar Althouse post...this is it.

Sydney म्हणाले...

The computer must be American. I am assuming the daily word is generated by a computer program.

Balfegor म्हणाले...

Haha. I use British spellings most of the time and I noticed this as well. I took all six tries because it took so long for me to recognise that I could make a word with the letters left over.

farmgirl म्हणाले...

“Still can be difficult to follow accents and phrasing from one area to another in the USA even in 2022”

Once had a Southern lady asking for something in our grocery store and no one could understand what all it was…
It was Pinesol. The cleaner. I finally understood her, somehow. I thought it was hilarious, all the Kingdom woodchucks who have (our)own accents trying to decipher her accent. I hope she was as amused as I was.

Puzzles w/pictures don’t have transcontinental hissyfits…

Breezy म्हणाले...

I failed at today’s word. I found the second, fourth and fifth letters early on, but there are many words that use those letters in those places. I just kept trying my unused letters until I failed altogether. Btw, the correct word appears as an image on the table when you fail, so at least you know the answer… a small gift.

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

Funny...my wife started doing these and I'd never heard of it before.

When she solved it this morning, I said, 'If it's a British game, why doesn't it have a 'U'?

Then it got me thinking about why we didn't keep the Brit habit of 'colour,' etc.

I just figured we kicked their ass in a war and just said, 'Fuck it, we do what we want.'

Joe Smith म्हणाले...

I would do the puzzle myself, but I don't have any time in my shedule...

Magson म्हणाले...

I regularly watch foreign youtube channels that often include people of multiple nationalities, and the common language is invariably English. And then they have fun breaking down how the English they all learn is different, so the demarcation of "British English" vs American, South African, Aussie, New Zealand, India, and "Singlish" (Singapore) is explicitly specified. Seems an odd thing for the Brits to be getting their panties in a bunch about today.

Richard म्हणाले...

Fischer's "Albion's Seed" covers a lot of early English. Turns out that early Massachusetts Bay slang is almost exactly what you'd hear Gabby Hays or some other comic relief in the old westerns saying. How, from four hundred years ago colonial to Hollywood screen writers?
Occasionally you'll see some news where somebody out in what passes for the boonies in England is being interviewed. Likely a screen crawl in English.

Kevin Walsh म्हणाले...

American spellings make more logical sense. There, I said it.

Kay म्हणाले...

I like to refer to the British style of comedy as “humour with a u.”

Kay म्हणाले...

Also: Separate tribal languages for separate tribes. And these are very general tribal affiliations, there are certainly tribes within tribes. It’s tribes all the way down.

Jaq म्हणाले...

Hee hee hee.

Not sure why, but the above is my reaction to the story.

Jaq म्हणाले...

"American spellings make more logical sense. There, I said it."

Oh yeah, logic and making sense are primary considerations in English spelling.

Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...

Because I used a funny word found in a discussion of good first words to try, I found today's word in two.

Narr म्हणाले...

U pipo buncha whingers!

English, as it is spoke, is a pidgin, and Americans just continued the processes of promiscuous borrowing and simplification that make English so versatile.

Barzun defended the strange relic spellings as little pieces of linguistic and cultural history.

You can get your news from BBC.com/pidgin now.

Left Bank of the Charles म्हणाले...

Sorry Brits, but the United Kingdom was formed by the Acts of Union 1800, which makes the United States of America the senior country when it comes to the English language, as well as the most populous, Also, Merriam-Webster predates the OED by 41 to 76 years.

Jaq म्हणाले...

There is a saying: "A language is a dialect with an army."

Balfegor म्हणाले...

Re: Joe Smith:

Then it got me thinking about why we didn't keep the Brit habit of 'colour,' etc.

I just figured we kicked their ass in a war and just said, 'Fuck it, we do what we want.'


Didn't a lot of these (like dropping the -u's) come about with Webster in 1806? Although since spelling wasn't really standardised at the time, the u-less variants may have been pretty common in the US anyhow. Doing some light googling around this (I certainly didn't know the date of his Compendious Dictionary), I can confirm that the Compendious Dictionary spells honour as "honor" and centre as "center," while also including unusual words like "conglobate" that are no longer in common use, if they ever were. Meanwhile, Johnson's 1755 Dictionary spells center as "centre" and honor as "honour." And also includes "conglobate." I think Johnson's dictionary made its way over to the colonies before the Revolution, but by that time English colonists had been in the Americas for over an hundred years, so it wouldn't be surprising if the local dialects had begun to diverge somewhat from whatever was fashionable in London at the time.

Jaq म्हणाले...

"Merriam-Webster "

This dictionary is dead and gone, bought by a billionaire and turned into a vehicle for manipulating the language to aid and abet the woke scolds. For instance, there is no sense of the word "baby" in that dictionary that would deal with the sentence "I felt the baby move today" solely due to abortion politics. It's like Schwinn bicycles, that venerably brand long since sold to the Chinese.

Balfegor म्हणाले...

Re: Left Bank of the Charles:

Sorry Brits, but the United Kingdom was formed by the Acts of Union 1800, which makes the United States of America the senior country when it comes to the English language, as well as the most populous, Also, Merriam-Webster predates the OED by 41 to 76 years.

I believe the Act of Union that resulted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain was 1707, under Queen Anne. The 1800 Act just added Ireland.

Balfegor म्हणाले...

Re: Narr:

English, as it is spoke, is a pidgin,

I would disagree -- English as she is spoke would be categorised as a creole, not a pidgin, unless the current definitions have shifted in recent scholarship. It might have been a pidgin at one point, but it now has a fully elaborated grammar and vocabulary of its own with native speakers, etc. But there's a strong argument that English isn't really even a creole at all, but a Germanic language that just has a huge number of borrowings from the Romance languages and miscellaneous other sources, sort of like Korean and Japanese have a vocabulary dominated by loanwords from Chinese. The answer might depend on the circumstances of the Conquest, e.g. whether a pidgin developed when the French nobles who came over with William the Conqueror had to interact with their new English subjects.

Doug म्हणाले...

If if wasn't for George Washington and the Continental Army, we'd all be spraying English now.

Doug म्हणाले...

*speaking*

Kevin Walsh म्हणाले...

"Oh yeah, logic and making sense are primary considerations in English spelling."

Granted English (and other languages like French) spellings are sometimes nods to etymology, not practicality. But why stick in an extra "u" in "or" words, or use S instead of Z in "-ize" words?

Doug म्हणाले...

Hey, can someone write a post about 'coloured people' without getting cancelled? Asking for a friend.

dbp म्हणाले...

Wordle 207 5/6

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Narayanan म्हणाले...

There was yet more discord when Americans started referring to English as 'British English.'
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the ynglsh also have Queens English and received English

Vance म्हणाले...

English is a Germanic language (Angles and Saxons)... with heavy French and other influences.

And boy, has it changed along the way. You've got Early English, early modern english--then Shakespeare took an axe to the whole thing. Reading stuff like Edgar Allen Poe is amazing--their vocabulary in the late 1700s-mid 1800s was astonishing.

Then the scientific revolution took hold, primarily driven by English speakers, and now we speak a language that Poe, Hawthorne, et. al. likely wouldn't recognize much of. "I rebooted the PC because it lacked RAM and locked up, all while downloading the latest podcast...." What on earth would a gentleman of letters think of such an abomination?

Rich म्हणाले...

This post provided a shortcut

Wordle 207 2/6

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Clyde म्हणाले...

tim in vermont said...

Oh yeah, logic and making sense are primary considerations in English spelling.


English is the only language that has spelling bees, or needs them.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

Craig Howard said...
It was their language first

Hey! My ancestors came from England in the 1600’s at a time when we all spoke the same version of English.

A century later, the Brits took it upon themselves to “refine” the language which consisted mainly in trying to make it sound more French thus the long “a” and the nasals. Along the way they adopted frenchified spellings, too: colour for couleur.

They can be kooky, those Brits.
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how kooky? will shakes his spear (angrily) would not unnerstand any of his plays >>> with toff pronunciation today

R C Belaire म्हणाले...

With a 5 letter word there's no room for a "u."

Jaq म्हणाले...

Chaucer wrote in a language modern English speakers cannot understand without serious study. 150 years later, William Shakespeare was born and he wrote in a language still clearly comprehensible to modern speakers 400 years later. Artists, at a certain level, have the power of armies.

rehajm म्हणाले...

With a 5 letter word there's no room for a "u."

In college there was this joke about Hawaiian Wheel of Fortune:

‘I’d like a K Pat’

‘There’s seven of them’

‘I’d like to solve the puzzle: Karakakakakakuh!

wildswan म्हणाले...

In 1908 the Simplifyd Speling Soseti was formed to reform spelling. A journal, The Pyoneer Ov Simplifyd Speling, recorded successes in getting Soseti books, such as Nerseri Rymz and Simpel Poëmz: A Ferst Reeder and Dhe Fonetik Aspekt ov Speling Reform adopted in schools. Leading professors in Anglo-Saxon literature backed the attempt to bring English back to its Angle-Saxon roots so that we could easily understand Beowulf:
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,

But the struggle naught availedeth. While President Theodore Roosevelt simplified American English spelling, his reforms were quite modest ones, such as taking out the "u" in various words such as "honor" and the "ae" out of pediatrics and gynecology. The English just went on mispelling everything - through, tough, cough, though, etc. The Soseti still exists but you can't find it on Google unless you look for the "Simplified Spelling Society." Dhe last twist ov dhe nyf.

tastid212 म्हणाले...

When I do The Times's puzzles I can never remember whether gamahouche has one "m" or two.

Kevin Walsh म्हणाले...

Shakespeare was writing approx 180-200 years after Chaucer. (1390 vs 1590)

Kevin Walsh म्हणाले...

Ed Rondthaler, who founded the company where I worked for several years, Photo Lettering, tried to simplify English spelling but that kind of thing never takes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/us/30rondthaler.html

Narr म्हणाले...

I'm always glad to see Balfegor correct someone else. It's not as pleasant when he corrects me.

I stand corrected in substance.

According to something on Youtube, English is about 40% French. I haven't gone down that rabbit hole (burrowing rodent den?) yet.

KellyM म्हणाले...

Kind of like me yelling at Clarkson every time he'd say 'aluminium' on "Top Gear". Guess it will always be the case, in the way of right/left hand drive, and crossing up your forks and knives when eating.

BTW: driving in the US Virgin Islands can be fraught with difficulty: one drives on the left but in right hand drive cars.

Baceseras म्हणाले...

The English just went on mispelling everything

Hmm...glass houses....

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

There was a big controversy in Canada a few years back because a commercial or advertisement featured a poem about "Everything from A to Z" and angry pedants pointed out that "z" was actually pronounced "zed."

When your sense of national identity depends on such things, haven't you already lost it?

gadfly म्हणाले...

What is this "we [Brits] don’t have 'get out of gaol free' cards"? The Parkers Brothers board game was a commercial enterprise developed and sold by Americans for Americans in America. The Monopoly board contains a "Go To Jail" penalty square and cards drawn randomly when a player lands on a Chance squares that grant "Get Out Of Jail Free" bonuses. So the Brits are wrong again - so wrong that the spelling in British English is now "jail" with "gaol" as a lowly-placed variant.

We're so sorry, Uncle Albert!

Tony from London म्हणाले...

Re: Balfegor and Left Bank of the Charles

I maintain that's not relevant when the United Kingdom was established as we're discussing the English language not British. The Kingdom of England was united in 927.

Similarly I maintain that comparative antiquity of dictionaries is also not relevant as they are descriptive rather than prescriptive. The English language is no more or less than the language used by the people of England.

Indigo Red म्हणाले...

Often the spelling changes were of practical necessity rather than any desire to differentiate English and American. Moveable type made possible the quick dissemination of information, but lead for letter slugs was expensive and in competition with military uses. Printsetters of olde had space issues with press beds and chases (tray holding the composed words.) Paper printing sheets were also cut to size for the common presses. Diphthong spellings like "ou" and "æ" took up valuable space.

Some letters are more common than others. E, I, and S are the most commonly used letters. The typeset box had a lot of Ss and few Zs. When Ss ran out or were short, Zs were substituted where possible, such as realize, organize, authorize, and any other words in which S might be pronounced as Z. Even whole words were replaced with less commonly used letters as with THE and YOU often spelled YE requiring context to differentiate.

Newspapers would share articles across the US over telegraph lines. Morse Code changed spelling habits with simplification through phonetic spellings to shorten messages. Also, telegrams were charged by the letter and customers had a financial interest in economical spellings much akin to today's abbreviated text spellings like "r u ok". However, some short words have been nearly lost in favor of longer spellings -- burned for burnt, spelled for spelt, smelled for smelt. WWW for World Wide Web is the most grievous. World Wide Web is only three syllables, while WWW is nine syllables. Spoken language is always in conflict with the written and will always be so.

Jaq म्हणाले...

"I maintain that comparative antiquity of dictionaries is also not relevant as they are descriptive rather than prescriptive"

Merriam-Webster is prescriptive. You are now supposed to say "Come feel the fetus kick honey." If that's not prescriptive, I don't know what the word means.

Shakespeare would have had trouble with the accent that he would be able overcome quickly, without studying vocabulary or grammar. I was in Paris once and they had subtitles on a French Canadian movie.

fizzymagic म्हणाले...

Clyde said...

Even the colored squares could be a hint if you know that the person habitually uses the same seed word each day.


Or you could just get the next word from the source code, where the entire list appears in order.

ken in tx म्हणाले...

I read of a diplomatic kerfuffle that once happened because of different usage between the British and Americans, of the phrase 'To Table'. To Americans it means to set a subject aside for later (or possibly no) consideration. To the British it means to place the subject forward for immediate consideration. Supposedly there was a long argument between the two about tabling a proposal which they both approved.

BTW, other interesting differences.

American suspenders = Brit braces
Brit suspenders = American garter belt
American vest = Brit waistcoat
Brit vest = American wifebeater undershirt
American pants = Brit trousers
Brit pants = American briefs/boxers--this caused me a problem one time with a British hotel manager.

Left Bank of the Charles म्हणाले...

Balfegor: “I believe the Act of Union that resulted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain was 1707, under Queen Anne. The 1800 Act just added Ireland.”

The Acts of Union 1707 created Great Britain, which the American colonies were part of until our independence. The United Kingdom came later, hence the US is senior to the UK.

Tony from London: “The English language is no more or less than the language used by the people of England.”

What about the Angles?

Steven म्हणाले...

Printers having a shortage of s's sounds like a folk explanation of the difference between the words spelled with -ize and with -ise. I have long understood that the difference between the -ize and -ise suffixes was whether the underlying Latin or Greek word entered English directly from Latin or Greek during the Renaissance when scholars imported lots of such words, or entered English via French (which used the -ise spelling). Of course, this is difference in origin is unknown to most speakers nowadays, who must therefore memorize the apparently random variation. American spelling wisely standardized on -ize.

Narr म्हणाले...

Good time to mention GBS's spelling of "fish." "Ghoti." Gh as in cough . . .

A boss of mine once proposed that the World Wide Web be called the Dubdubdub. Simple, rather elegant, never caught on.

A lot of English prescriptive grammar rules (like 'no split infinitives') seem to have been imposed on the theory that if one imports a lot of words from older, 'better' languages, one should also bring in some of their rules.

Mencken's magnum opus was of course "The American Language."

Why is beggar not spelled begger?

Orville Mars म्हणाले...

Wordle 208

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Narayanan म्हणाले...

Didn't a lot of these (like dropping the -u's) come about with Webster in 1806? Although since spelling wasn't really standardised at the time, the u-less variants may have been pretty common in the US anyhow.
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you are correct Sir

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence ....

... We Mutually Pledge To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes And Our Sacred Honor

Stephen St. Onge म्हणाले...

Indigo Red said... "E, I, and S are the most commonly used letters."

        Wrong, wrong.  E,T,A,O,I,N,S,R,H,D,L,U are the twelve most common letters, in that order.

Stephen St. Onge म्हणाले...

        Oh, and I just tried Wordle for the first time today, and got it on the third guess. Much luck.

Tony from London म्हणाले...

Left Bank of Charles asserted "The Acts of Union 1707 created Great Britain, which the American colonies were part of until our independence."

The Acts of Union 1707 explicitly distinguish between Great Britain and its overseas possessions. Thus in clause II:

"That the Succession to the Monarchy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and of the Dominions thereunto belonging after Her Most Sacred Majesty and in default of Issue of Her Majesty be...."

Also in clause IV:

"That all the Subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain shall from and after the Union have full Freedom and Intercourse of Trade and Navigation to and from any port or place within the said United Kingdom and the Dominions and Plantations thereunto belonging..."

Also I understand that the colonies were not represented in the GB parliaments and that this was a point of contention during subsequent unfortunate events.

LBoC also asserted "The Acts of Union 1707 created Great Britain, which the American colonies were part of until our independence. The United Kingdom came later, hence the US is senior to the UK."

Clauses II and III of the Acts of Union 1707 refer to "the United Kingdom of Great Britain" thus I suggest that the UK existed from 1707.

Vivat Regina!

Narr म्हणाले...

Sound the alarum!

(BLTN)

Magson म्हणाले...

The opening stanzas of "The Chaos" which was written 100 years ago by a Dutch man in order to highlight just how much of a hodgepodge English spellings are/were even then --

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe."

Narr म्हणाले...

Brilliant, Magson! Bedankt.

Indigo Red म्हणाले...

Stephen St. Onge said...
Indigo Red said... "E, I, and S are the most commonly used letters."

Wrong, wrong. E,T,A,O,I,N,S,R,H,D,L,U are the twelve most common letters, in that order.

Ooops, sorry. I intended to type 'among the most common.'

Balfegor म्हणाले...

Re: Narr:

I'm always glad to see Balfegor correct someone else. It's not as pleasant when he corrects me.

I hope it comes through that the disagreement is not meant unkindly. I've been corrected in this very thread (re: the Kingdom of Great Britain vs. the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) after all. At its sometimes-moderated best, I think Prof. Althouse's comments are a place where we can all correct and be corrected (or at least disagree with each other) in good humour.