this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
130 points (96.4% liked)

Asklemmy

43826 readers
813 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

For example, English speakers commonly mix up your/you're or there/their/they're. I'm curious about similar mistakes in other languages.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] deo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 11 months ago

I think it's because English isn't super consistent with the spelling of vowel sounds. Consider also "choose" (rhymes with "lose") and "chose" (which doesn't rhyme with either).

I guess really the vowel sound in loose/lose is basically the same; the difference is whether or not the "s" makes a "s" sound or a "z" sound... It is admittely odd that the presence or absence of an extra "o" would affect the sound of an adjacent constant (especially when we have a perfectly good "z" character available).

Which reminds me of my pet peeve: when people use "breath" or "cloth" instead of "breathe" or "clothe".