Saturday, September 8, 2012
Thinking About Words
Sometimes when I am just sitting around, I think about words in the English language and how silly they can be. For instance: the word patio and the word ratio are both spelled with the same letters except for the "p" and the "r" and yet these words sound nothing alike. I noticed this when I was walking through the patio furniture section of Target and had been learning probabilities that same day. Anyway, this silliness is apparent in a lot of words. Take my favorite for example: apron and saffron. Well actually, I lied. These two do sound the same. But everybody says the latter wrong. Now my question to you is why? If apron is pronounced a certain way, then why don't people pronounce saffron the exact same way? Think about it. Most people say "saffron" with the "ahh" sound. This bugs me so, so, so much because I have a sister named Saffron and when people yell out her name at soccer games or are just trying to get her attention at school, they say it wrong! But why? Why is it that ratio and patio do not sound the same? Why is it that people say saffron with an "ahhhh" when it rhymes with apron? I don't know, and I suspect no one else does. There is no right answer. The English language can be a silly thing, and I just happened to be wondering about it.
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Well, I can't answer your question. But! I can certainly say that this translates to other languages, like Spanish. I have been working at Culver's and many Spanish speakers work there. Naturally, we use Spanish while working and occasionally they will teach me new words. For instance. I wanted to say that I am excited for hunting season but I didn't know what 'To Hunt' was. I asked an amigo and he told me that it is 'Cazar.' What was funny about this and threw me for a loop is that this is the same word for 'To Marry.' However, that is spelled like 'Casar.' They sound exactly the same and the only way you would know the difference is if somebody spelled it out for you (they had to do that when this came up for me). Language fails. Funny how it is a way of knowing but it fails so often for us.
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Apron and saffron? I thought "apron" had a long "ay" sound and saffron had the short "a" sound. The English language is a very unique language as it has developed its words from roots in many languages. It is rife with homonyms, non-rhyming words, complex rules, and other oddities. We need rules for structure, but restructuring the English language to be completely regular is going to take some time.
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