Hoi Polloi

Spell it Out by David Crystal is a comprehensive history of the English language that’s presented in a very succinct and clear style, if that’s the kind of thing you mean?

I always think of ‘desert’ as in ‘deserted’. Like, a ‘desert island’ is one that is deserted. Therefore it makes perfect sense.

Yes, that’d be good. Anything to do with the history and evolution of language is kind of what I was looking for.

I remember our A-level English teacher giving us a print out that summarised (in a page or two) where English came from. She said if we liked it, it might be worth considering something language related at uni. I liked it, but didn’t. We had to do a wee tiny bit for AI at uni, but not much.

I did English at uni and it was fucking rubbish, but luckily they had a decent library! Etymology is just beautiful - each word is a well of meaning, and the deeper you go the more you get out of it.

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The verb to desert is obviously spelt with a single s and pronounced like dessert. It’s a nonsense.

You must hate words that have “ough” in them then.

EXACTLY!

There are loooooads of exceptions. A double consonant usually gives the preceding vowel a short sound, and an ‘e’ after a consonant gives the preceding vowel a long sound. Half the fucking time it doesn’t though! The English language is basically a territory that’s been fought over throughout history, and its landscape has suffered as a result.

Condone - can never remember if it’s like good thing or bad thing.

“I can’t condone people wiping their bogeys down the back of their headboard”

What have I said there?

I kind of think of condone as the opposite of condemn.

Bet when whoever dreamt up CONDEMnation during the coalition, they laughed smugly and at some point later had to check the dictionary

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And neither desert (noun or verb) nor dessert has a bloody S sound in it! They’re DEZ-ut and diz-ERT.

Need to put the letter Z to work more in English, the lazy 10-point bastard

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I can never remember which one it is, but there’s one where he just reads off all the ridiculous names behind his agent’s desk and I absolutely lose it.

I think it’s the very last episode maybe.