The way we spell things in the English language is weird, I am a native English speaker of 40 something years and even I struggle at times so it is little wonder that people get confused and pronounce some words differently ( I won’t say wrong as there are normally valid reasons for the alternative pronunciation).
For some reason we have 2 different spellings of the same word, There and their, to indicate a location or ownership. We also have a shortened version of they are, they’re. All of these sound pretty much the same but have totally different meanings. Just like which and Witch, Bury and berry or guessed and guest.
A guy I used to work with once pronounced the town of Slough as Sluf, using the “GH” of the word to create an “F” sound and a few people laughed but it could make perfect sense to pronounce the word enough as enuf by using the same letters to create the sound of the “F”. The letter H likes to cause confusion, the letters G and P are happy to go about their business acting as a G or a P but pair them with an H and they like to pretend they are an F for no apparent reason. We already have another letter to do the job of an F….It’s an F.
The word “Woman” is very strange, the “O” is usually pronounced as a “U” but if you change the fourth letter to an “E” to pluralise the word it instantly changes both vowels to an “I” sound.
The “SH” sound in the word Nation is actually produced by the “TI” section of the word, I can see no reason for this. By applying these examples of alternative letters to create the sound of other letters you really can create some interesting spellings or pronunciation of every day words. Home could be pronounced Hume, the word Phone has so many issues I don’t even know where to start, it could be pronounced in so many different ways. Also why is it when you add a G in front of the word host the “H” vanishes? Surely adding the G should change the pronunciation to Fost?
So, I will ask again… Does anyone fancy a portion of GHOTI and chips?
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