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I would like to recommend Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don’t Rhyme—And Other Oddities of the English Language.

It’s a pretty quick read and it explains exactly how the English language became such a mess. For each thing that doesn’t make sense, it provides a reason that explains it. Short version: the timing of the Great Vowel Shift relative to the invention of the printing press really screwed it over. There’s quite a bit more (Norman invasion in particular), but that was what codified all the badness.

Learning the “why” of so many previously preposterous language and spelling rules was gratifying and enlightening. They’re still preposterous but slightly less maddening now.

There’s also an excellent podcast interview with the author on 99% Invisible. Check it out. It made me buy the book and I definitely recommend it every time a post like this comes up.

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rumschlumpel@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
IMO, the more important reason is that English is crusty af. Lots of languages had massive changes since the printing press was invented, but that didn’t stop them from changing their orthography. Germany even had an official spelling reform in the 1990s.

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- some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  Note: Changed my mind but preserved initial reaction:
  
  No. Read the book. Other languages had their massive shifts before or after the printing press. English evolved at roughly the same time. That caused chaos. While other languages solidified in advance, and others solidified after, the english language was evolving at the same time that rules were written. It’s a perfect disaster (those who know, know. great song. great album).
  
  Not direct support for my argument, just context:
  
  The standardization of English spelling began in the 15th and 16th centuries; the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often deviate considerably from how they represent pronunciations.
  
  Back to commenter (so it doesn’t look like I’m joining different quotes):
  
  Germany even had an official spelling reform in the 1990s.
  
  I’ve never heard of this, so maybe I’m wrong / uninformed. ~~I’ll look into it because I truly believe that language shapes thought and this is interesting to me.~~
  
  The German orthography reform of 1996 (Reform der deutschen Rechtschreibung von 1996) was a change to German spelling and punctuation that was intended to simplify German orthography, thereby making it easier to learn,[1] without substantially changing the rules familiar to users of the language.
  
  Wow. That’s so incredible and impossible where I live (USA) that I’m dumbstruck at the pragmatism of it. I was wrong. Fuck England and the USA (as always!).
  
  “German orthography reform of 1996”[1]
  
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
  
  en.wikipedia.org/…/German_orthography_reform_of_1…
  
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basxto@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Those three are even all from the old vocabulary, they all have German cognates: zäh, durch, Teig

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