Just seems stupid to change the spelling for the number
2006-07-20 04:31:30 · 10 answers · asked by tmpafford 3 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
A long, long time ago, back when English was fluid and graceful and changeable and most people lived their lives within a small geographic space; eight wise women were sent into the woods one beautiful summer.
The eight women were charged by King James to set down rules of grammar as known to them, for they were reputed to be holy, wealthy, wise, and particularly picky. The women had eighty days to complete their task. However, what King James didn't know was that the youngest of them all was a hermaprhodite.
As the 79th night drew to it's close, all the women but the youngest retired early to their cots, under the silken tents in long dark woods. The youngest, stealthy in her cunningness waited until the last candle had been snuffed out, and then waited a little bit longer for good measure.
She had been chaffed, ribbed, and guffed at enough, and now she would have her revenge. Tucking herself slowly into the middle tent where the great books were kept, 79 days worth of arduous work and bickering, she seated herself on the chair closest to the door and grabbed the closest book.
"Fourty became "forty." She wrote special clauses in for the verb "to be," and grinned into the night. "Childs" became "Children," she thought that one was funny too. On, and on, until the first birds began to chirp she scratched and re-wrote all the rules she came across.
Just as she began to hear her companions rising, she slid back into her cold cot and feigned sleeping until the royal escort arrived.
No one discovered the treachery until King James himself opened up the first volume, and by then it was too late. The man was hell bent on publishing his Bible, and the rules of grammar would have to be as they were written down.
The youngest wise woman, the stealthy hermaprhodite escaped the revenge of her companions and went to live in the woods, where she whittled word games onto trees forever more.
2006-07-20 06:27:10 · answer #1 · answered by Sniggle_The_Goosepel 1 · 2⤊ 0⤋
good question i was wondering that exact same thing last week, however i dont have an answer for you. it does seem to be kinda stupid to change the spelling. English is just such a hard language to grasp.
2006-07-20 11:37:21 · answer #2 · answered by garrett1080 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well apparently the reason being is because 14, 4, and 40 are all different...right? well they did that to show that forty is not plural. dumb nut
2006-07-20 12:22:39 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
it's language english has to many differences in spelling as well as reading. for instant say this word CHILD then say CHILDREN, WHY DOES THE SOUND CHANGES. it just makes the laguage harder to learn.
2006-07-20 11:38:42 · answer #4 · answered by ybzcarlos1 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Good question. You're right, there is no good grammatical, semantic, syntactic, etc. reason. It's just one of those cute (or damnable, depending on your perspective) idiosyncracies of the english language.
2006-07-20 16:13:40 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
that is why when foreigners come over here they misspelled too many words because the english language is crazy look at there their
2006-07-20 12:40:41 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yea, why is that?!
Why is known pronounced NOAN, but reknown is pronounced REE-NOUN?
Oops, yeah - RENOWN. That's what I meant. Sorry.
2006-07-20 11:58:11 · answer #7 · answered by Sixth_Sense 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Like it or not, it's a linguistic rule.
2006-07-20 12:06:13 · answer #8 · answered by Berserker_Gatsu 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
reknown is not pronounced as "REE-NOUN". you're thinking of renowned as in famous.
2006-07-20 12:30:47 · answer #9 · answered by jim k 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
as three and thirteen and thirty why thirty has no double e
2006-07-20 12:48:14 · answer #10 · answered by omar g 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋