Ralph Shumaker wrote:
James G. Sack (jim) wrote:
Ya want more?
When I was looking lightly into middle english and olde english, I found
that the reason for our attrocious spelling in today's english came
mostly as a result of the printing press.
Oops, s/mostly/in no small part/
When typesetters from other
language backgrounds came to try to print english, they had only the
letters from their own language. So they used approximations to try to
get close to the actual pronunciation in accordance with the limits of
the sounds of *their* letters. The bottom line here (for me) is that
they didn't let the customary spelling get in the way of trying to
approximate the actual pronunciation with what they had available.
--
Suppose a supernatural being, say Zeus, threw lightning bolts at Lan's
house. Since one of his fundamental assumptions is that there's no
supernatural, his explanation will necessarily not acknowledge the
possibility of a supernatural being throwing lightning bolts. He will
find an explanation that /fits/.
--Stewart Stremler
--
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