• Gilberto@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    1 year ago

    English is phonetically inconsistent, you can find examples to support both ways of pronouncing it.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      There are some consistencies in letter patterns, just not in individual letters. For example, no word that starts with go-, ga-, or gu- pronounces the g like a j (except for the archaic gaol, and there’s a reason the spelling was changed to jail). It’s mainly limited to ge- and gi- words.

      Inconsistencies with the other options are probably due either to how the term came into English (English is practically built on loanwords) or some other subsequent pattern of letters I’m too lazy to try to identify.

    • penguin@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      The only real rule is that words come and go and change organically. People don’t just decree that a word needs to change like some king of language.