English is weird
John McWhorter, The Week,
December 20, 2015
English speakers know that
their language is odd. So do nonspeakers saddled with learning it. The oddity
that we all perceive most readily is its spelling, which is indeed a nightmare.
In countries where English isn’t spoken, there is no such thing as a spelling
bee. For a normal language, spelling at least pretends a basic correspondence
to the way people pronounce the words. But English is not normal...
