April 20, 2002
What's
in a word? Why does a specific word sound good coming from your
lips. Why does another word sound horrible? Why does Love sound so
much better than Hate? Words have forever fascinated me. I learned
to read at a very early age and I've never slowed down. Granted I
don't read Scientific journals or books on "How To Do - - -" just
about everything. Mostly, I read for recreation and fun, learning
a bit here, pitting my brains against the villain there. No, I love
words and how to pronounce them, how to find the meaning of them,
and why is one word used here and another very similar word used
there. And our cockeyed language that has so many words that sound
alike and are spelled alike but do not mean the same thing at all.
Or, words that have letters in them that are silent, so why are they
there at all? Take some of these for examples of the above:
Dough meaning the base for breadmaking. Or does it mean Money or
Cash? Or is it spelled Doe, a female deer, la la la. Why is the
first 'dough' word spelled with the letters u g h which are not
pronounced at all. Why does ' Dough' stand in for Cash or Money?
Where did this all start - and why hasn't this all been overhauled?
One can imagine the Herculean task that faces someone attempting to
learn our language after being thrown into the English as a Second
Language class and being so overwhelmed. It's a miracle that these
people learn to speak and write as well as they do. I firmly
believe that they all deserve a medal for accomplishing all that the
curriculum asks of them.
But the first Medals should go to the Teachers who patiently, day
after day, night after night work with youngsters, oldsters and many
in between and bring the magic of our Words to them.
Just some of my random thoughts. And see, the word 'thoughts' has
extra letters in it. Why not spell it Thawts?
Hmmm..
