this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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Building Solidarity - One Word at a Time

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When was the last time English spelling was updated? (hexbear.net)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I almost feel like English should start from scratch with spelling, There are basically no consistent rules at all. I think we should assign spelling to kindergartners who actually follow the rules of English and spell things like they should be spelled.

Quinoa -> Keen-wa

Ballet -> Baal-Eh

Design -> De-zine

etc.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

as an Italian I have to remind you that "gabagool" and "capicola" are not Italian words. I had to look them on internet. There are definite rules for reading Italian; I can understand the pronunciation from the written text with little ambiguity. Spelling contests are not a thing here.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

OK apparently the standard italian spelling is "capocollo". I've only ever seen it spelled capicola or gabagool in the US. Wiktionary also lists capicollo, capicolla, and cappicola. Honestly just highlights my point. There's what, 70mil Italian speakers? Imagine having to deal with this for the Billions of English speakers.

I'm not an Italian speaker but from what I remember. Italian Americans pronounce it "gabagool" because that's how 19th c. Neopolitan pronounces that word, and presumably the "proper" spelling of "capicola" also comes from that region/era. c ---> g, p ---> b, and dropping word final vowels are apparently the phonemic rules for that dialect. Little subtleties like that exist for basically every phonetic writing system, even ones artificially constructed to be phonetically regular like Pinyin or Hangul. I'm sure if you asked Tony Soprano he would also think "capicola" is a perfectly phonetically regular way to spell it the same way French people don't think the extra consonants at the end of french words are extraneous.