- Why are four and forty spelled differently?
One response found stated that "when pronounced correctly, there are two vowel sounds in four. It's pronounced foh-er, except it's slurred into one syllable. Forty, on the other hand, does not have the extra vowel sound in it. It's simply fohr-ty." I like this response better -- "Life gets shorter when U get older!!" - Why is again spelled 'again'?
It's spelled that way because the British English and Atlantic states pronunciation is /əˈgeɪn/ [uh-geyn], rhyming with pain. Again said as /əˈgɪn/[uh-gin], with the vowel of pit or sip, or with a vowel somewhere between /ɛ/[e] and /ɪ/[i], is the common pronunciation in much of the South. But, by far the most common pronunciation of again, in all parts of the United states is /əˈgɛn/ [uh-gen]. - In most two-syllable words, the first syllable is accented.
Example: famous, August, notice, people Exception: polite, explain. instead - The soft vowels are e, i, y. In most words where g or c are followed by e, i, y, the consonant g or c has a soft sound rather than the hard sound — g = /j/ and c= /s/.
Example: gentle, giant, gym center, city, cycle - There are three types of compound words:
open (fire drill), closed (doghouse), and hyphenated (send-off). - Ever wonder why gas and bus don’t follow the “FSZL” (doubling of those letters after a short vowel) rule?
Gas is the abbreviated version of gasoline and bus is the abbreviated version of omnibus. - Ever wonder why from, other, oven, come, some, mother, etc. contain the vowel ‘o’ instead of the vowel ‘u’ with the sound of /ŭ/?
Before the printing press, monks who were scribes notices that many of their quill-penned letters were difficult to read. Most troublesome were the letters formed with similar, beginning, up-and-down strokes: m n w u r v Therefore the wise scribes changed the vowel grapheme u to o when u appeared adjacent to one of the letters listed. The scribes could not, however, alter the pronunciation of the words that were affected by the spelling change they made. Therefore, the grapheme o in words like month, brother, love, some, and wonder, is pronounced /u/.
(from Nancy Cushin White)
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