'Read' and its past tense are spelled the same. How should they be spelled?

[gramie@lemmy.ca]

That would explain why a pencil, which contains a "lead" (actually a polymer or graphite now) is Bleistift

[capuccino@lemmy.world]

Spanish is awesome. All its verbs in their regular form do end in "-ar", "-er" and "-ir".

[yermaw@sh.itjust.works]

Also the language is called English. By default, the English are doing it right and anything else is wrong. Maybe better, the argument can go for decades longer, but if anyones wrong its everyone else.

[raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world]

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/304867/the-wrought-wreaked-havoc-misunderstanding

Today I learned...

[ech@lemmy.ca]

My point is no one is wrong. Well, you are, but not for the way you spell things.

[palordrolap@fedia.io]

Potential exception: "Adult." Arguably because it generally isn't a verb when emphasis is on the second syllable, some people do that even when it's a noun.

I'm an Adult vs. I'm an aDULT. *

Use as of "adult" as a verb is non-standard and where to emphasise that is even less clear-cut for those of us who put the emphasis on the first syllable of the noun. Interestingly, "adulterate" is less strange as a verb and the emphasis is definitely on the second syllable there.

We could tie ourselves in knots analysing the late emphasis form as a verbified noun, re-nounified. Ow.

* The underlying truth of said statement is irrelevant. Chronologically, I have been one for some time. Mentally... ehh.

[otp@sh.itjust.works]

My ally turned on me and then I turned her on

[afk_strats@lemmy.world]

The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité (1922)

https://ncf.idallen.com/english.html

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.
...

Very long. Highly recommended

[ourkaos@lemmy.today]

This is the grammar thing I fuck up the most, and I don't call people on it because I'm pretty sure I don't know how it works. Autocorrect changes it & I just say "oh, whoops", and it still looks wrong...

[ourkaos@lemmy.today]

The conjugations can get as weird as English sometimes, though. Case in point: Ser.

[everett@lemmy.ml]

Here's a shortcut: test if you could drop "his" into the same spot and have it make sense. (And of course you'd never write hi's or his's.) If "his" would work, "its" would work.

[canadaplus@lemmy.sdf.org]

Reed, red. Homophones should be homographs too.

[hugenerd@lemmy.ca]

its, not it's.

[hugenerd@lemmy.ca]

it's means "it is". It is really not difficult, just pretend you are Data and swear off contractions.

[bss03@infosec.pub]

"que sera sera" es un ejemplo.

[ourkaos@lemmy.today]

I think the contraction vs possesive thing messes with me, and my brain can never settle on what goes where when, how, or why...

[treczoks@lemmy.world]

Where, were, we're. Even native speakers have problems with this. I don't know how many times I had to correct such cases, especially with American authors.

[aesthelete@lemmy.world]

Reed and Red

[amelia@feddit.org]

Just try changing it to "it is". If the sentence still makes sense, it's "it's". Otherwise it's "its".

[remon@ani.social]

They should be spelled the way they currently are.