I finally had my turn to name our cat. I chose to call her ‘Ghlarn.”

It is an acronym for my words of faith: Gratitude, Hope, Love, Attitude, Respect, and Nature.

Those 5 words are ‘enuf.’

The English language has many words with silent letters or combinations of letters that should sound the same but don’t.

For my cat’s name, the ‘gh’ has the ‘f’ sound, as in ‘laugh.’ This causes all sorts of delightful conversations as the Vet’s receptionist tries to bring up the proper file. It fits my personality, as I’m the family member who used my turn to call an earlier cat, Dog. Again, it was such fun when my young grandson told the kindergarten teacher that his Dog has a loud meow.

But I digress.

Take the ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ rule. Now isn’t that weird.

Here are a few more mind benders. Laughter and daughter. They should rhyme, but don’t. Sew and new! And here’s one spelled differently, but one could say rhyme, kernel and colonel.

Uncle.

‘K,’ I’ll stop now.

There have been movements to clean up the English language and stop its drift into having more exceptions than rules. A monk in the 1100s tried, but his ideas didn’t catch on.

In the 1700s, Noah Webster was influenced by the times—the early days of the American Revolution. One small way of reducing the power of the oppressors from overseas was to make American English a thing.

A man still ahead of his time. He was mocked and ignored, poor man.

This simplified spelling seemed to dumb the language down. It spelled words as a young child would spell.

In the 1800s, the spelling reformers overlapped their rationale with social movements. The abolitionists, who were against slavery, used simplified spelling to quickly improve the literacy of newly freed slaves.

Now we get to the current movement for more efficient use of the written word. Or rather, it isn’t a movement but rather a quiet bottom-up takeover.

The English language is never dull.

OK becomes ‘k.’ ‘You becomes ‘u’ and so on. Yes, texting and general digital communication have evolved rapidly without any identified leader.

Please give this a bit of a think. What is your favourite pet peeve about the English Language?

My thanks to the folks at CBC Radio and Author Gabe Henry for his book, Enough is Enuf.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I am curious about your thoughts. Please comment below or send me an email with your bit of a think.

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glenn.walmsley@icloud.com