Do you know any weird English words?

Question

I'm a French and Spanish teacher and I'd like to make up a list of odd English words to help my students see how English isn't as easy as they may think. For instance, you have words of two different pronunciations, even though they are spelled the same such as: read/read, wind/wind, wound/wound. Then you have some that have similar spellings but different pronunciations like: though, through, rough, bough. Not to mention all the homonyms (their, there, they're, too, to, two, etc.).

Please make sure to tell what about the word is weird. Thanks!

Answer 1

The word "Lead" is spelt the same but pronounced differently if you mean "Lead" as in a guitar lead or to lead someone, or "Lead" as in the type of metal.
"Wind."
"Wind" as in the wind blowing and "Wind" as in wind up a clock.
And then there's "Live"
It's pronounced "Live" as in "Livestock" if it's something alive, and "Live" as in to reside.
To destinguish the differences in pronounciation, I't pronounced "Live" as in "Livestock" if something is alive. (Animals and electricity as well.)

Answer 2

Ointment is probably the strangest sounding word in the English language, but it's not difficult, it jsut sounds funny. But some of the words the people where I work have a hard time pronouncing, are live(as in where do you live) and live(as in are the cameras live). They always sound like they're saying leave and love, respectively. It is very difficult for them to grasp the pronunciation of our vowels. But it is similarly difficult for us to grasp the rolling R's and the nasaly N's. I find it easy to pronounce words of any lanuage for some reason. It's so weird. I grew up in south Louisiana, so I understand why that's so easy, but I have Chinese and Spanish friends who say I am good at pronouncing their words. They say I sound like I've been speaking their language for 10 years. In reality I only know a few words as of yet, but I can understand pronunciation well.

If you want to show them how difficult the English language is, show them how the Chinese learn to speak alot earlier than Americans do. Chinese might sound difficult, but they don't use alot of lingual devices. It's actually very simple, but elegant.

Oh and as for the weird plurals listed above, don't forget the ones that don't even change, like:

Deer, fish, fowl, etc...

Answer 3

Well, olive oil is made from olives, but baby oil isn't made from babies.
There's a really cute scene in an old I Love Lucy episode where Ricky is reading a book to little Ricky. It's got words like "bough" and "rough" and "through," etc. Every time Lucy tells him how to pronounce one and he gets to the next one, he says it wrong because he pronounces it the way the previous one was said. Your students would get a kick out of it if you could maybe rent that and show it to them.

Answer 4

contractions are weird too. most other languages dont have them. We are = We're... Do not =Don't... And who decides where the ' goes ?

Also Oxy morons. pretty ugly. original copies, virtual reality, rolling stop, found missing, microsoft works, military intelligence, etc etc

Palindromes kinda weird but cool. radar, racecar, poop, mom, civic, level... spelled same forward and backward,

In Finnish there is a 25-letter palindromic word: SOLUTOMAATTIMITTAAMOTULOS which means the result from a measurement laboratory for tomatoes, although technically it is a compound of four words. There is also the equally long SAIPPUAKUPPINIPPUKAUPPIAS which means soap cup trader.

Answer 5

Science, conscience, caffeine, weird- All violate the "i before e, except after c" rule for spelling.

Lots of good homonyms
sealing/ceiling

The long 'i' sound:
kite, bite, cite, site AND
light, night, bright, fright

margarine- the only word that has the 'soft' g sound before the letter a.

odd plurals:
tooth, teeth
foot, feet
man/woman, men/women
child, children

Answer 6

Well, weird is one of them - it doesn't follow the "i before e" rule!
How about words that are close in meaning but have different correct uses - like lay/lie, good/well, less/fewer, affect/effect, comprise/contain.
And don't forget the subjunctive! I really learned about the subjunctive in English when I had to understand it in Spanish. If I were you, I'd include that. :o)

Answer 7

This is more of a funny thing I noticed as opposed to a "weird" word. May not be suitable for a classroom unless it's high school or college.

Why don't they call "asteroids" hemorrhoids? They should switch the two words. "Asteroids" because they are a pain in your butt, and "hemorrhoids" because they are things in the "hemisphere"?

Answer 8

umm wierd is a wierd word umm umm umm read and red and read and write right and to too two and umm aunt ant . umm anything that is plural with out and s or es like deer plural deer... or duck and duck (as in food) goose is geese moose is moose. man men woman women child children umm umm I will try to think of more too there are MANY MANY MORE I AM SURE good luck hey i speak a little french and spanish too kewl!

Answer 9

Deer is plural without an S at the end
live/live adjective/verb
red/read is a homonym
peer/peer to look/an equal
corps

Answer 10

supercalifragilisticexpialidotiois is the word off of mary poppins

and there they're their three meanings and three spellings but pronunced the same

Answer 11

on of my friends who's first language is spanish can drive himself crazy with the correct pronounciation of these words
cheep/sheep/chip/ship
full/fool
worm/warm
men/man