Back in the lab I'm typing in notes for my project video game fanfic cinematic universe, like ya do, and I type in the word firey. Microsoft tells me that isn't how you spell it, so I type firy instead. Doesn't feel right, and Microsoft knows it, and recommends words like fury, fairy, and... firry. I have no idea what that means, neither does the Vizzed spell check, so I looked it up, and Google asked me if I meant furry. I then slap Google. After that I found out firry meant something made out of fir wood, which makes absolutely no sense. Back to my document, I fidget around with the words a bit, and eventually spell check tells me to type fiery. Ah, right, that is how it was meant to be sp- wait.
Fire.
Fiery.
WHAT

Guys, language is dumb. As much as humanity tries to establish conventions and rules, it gets to a point when ain't is technically a word, hence whoms't, and I before E, the very groundwork of all I learned in Elementary, is a freaking lie. My dad, who came from Puerto Rico and has gradually developed into a disgruntled seagull, likes poking fun at language conventions with me. He says the way most people say McDonalds is backwards, like we say Dahnolds instead of DoenAllds, and things like when people use the term "all of a sudden" or "all of the sudden", like, what does that even mean? You can get by just saying suddenly. I likened it to when someone needs to write a 1000 word essay and turns "can't" into "that of which I am unable to can".

Basically dad goaded me into the dark side and I am now a grammar nazi. God help us all.

..... why does everyone advocate the use of TL;DR? Are we supporting ignorant idiots who refuse to soak in knowledge and believe that plastic grows on trees? Who was the jerk who convinced everyone that being an uneducated imbecile was appealing in the eyes of your peers and ideal for living a prosperous fut-EUGH glad I got that out of my system.

Of course, English is just one of many languages that it has occurred to me make no sense sometimes. For instance, I'm trying to finally get a grasp on Spanish so my ancestor ghosts don't send me to hell, and I learn gusto mucho means "I like it a lot", which makes sense, mucho is a lot, gusto is enjoyment. Hence mucho gusto is... nice to meet you.
WHAT count: 2

Even before that, I was having a discussion with my mom about Spanish, and I accidentally said something along the lines of "fifty-tres". She laughs, I laugh (in pain) and I ask her how numbers beyond 20 work, as I already know all the ones up until then. Well, veinte is 20, so from there, it's veintiuno, veintidos, veintitres, and so on. It sounds so simple! I assume every subsequent number is treintiuno, treintidos... hence 53 is cincuentatres! Nope. The numbers from 1-20 are unique, every other number by tens is like treinta y cinco, cuarenta y cinco, but the veinte's are the exception.
WHAT count: 3

So that's the groundwork of this thread, what are some things that made you question if a language was doing something wrong?

I could correct a few wrong things on your post, but since I understand your pain I won't be the grammar nazi you were goaded to become xD

While I'll admit language is dumb, when looking for translations you shouldn't think on a literal translation but rather what each language uses for each situation. I'm not talking just about the common "false friends", words that sound similar but mean entirely different things, but for the way each language uses for expressions.

For example, one of the possible translations to "mucho gusto" would be "my pleasure". In Spanish we have an equivalent to that, but not an exact equivalent: we say "un placer" instead of "mi placer" ("a pleasure" instead of "my pleasure").

The way each language works is different. Look up how would you say 86 in French, for example. Or how ladybug generally incurs in a female pronoun whereas in German a male one must be used instead. Or how turning a word into two can totally alter its meaning, like "por qué" meaning "why?" and "porque" meaning "because".

On a personal level, I have quite the feud with verbs in English. Being raised in Spanish, I've learnt that each tense has its own form and each person has its own associated form. I agree that it's much harder to handle when a single verb can have so many forms, but that also makes our language rich and you don't have to worry about adding anything to the verb so it says exactly what you want to express.

Also, while I've left German unchecked for a long while now, I still remember sentences where the verb is at the very end, beyond any other word. Like, saying "why would you go to your mother's house" being something close to "why would you to your mother's house go".

Did y'all know Italian write their ordinal numbers with the same symbol we use as a degree sign?


I was also thinking about how we reduce unstressed function words to enclitics a lot. Like for "It is", we come out with "it's", and with "is not", we have "isn't", and then we have larger phrases, we have either "it's not" or "it isn't", and they both valid. So why not condense that further? Why can't we make "it is not" a so much smaller word like "it'sn't"? How about "It would not have"? "It'dn't've"? I don't understand why those aren't valid.

EDIT: I also like how English lost its original second-person plural personal pronoun, and then different dialects innovated new ones from combining new words. In the southern regions of the US, there's the infamous "y'all" from "you all", but I learned not long ago that, in the northeastern regions of the US, such as the New England area, some apply a regular plural suffix for "yous".

In general, I think we overthink the "proper" language in our daily lives. Language is just a way to communicate; sure it's better if it's logical and concise, but as long as the point get's across, what the harm in saying "all of sudden"?

One of the funniest examples of how ridiculous language can get is the numbering system in French.

1-16 each have their names, "un" to "seize"; but 17-19, we say "ten-seven", "ten-eight", and "ten-nine" not unlike "seven-teen".

From 20-69 Everything proceeds normally, every ten numbers we have a new word and add the single unit at the end: "Fourty-one" is "Quarante-et-un". However, 70, is not simply "seventy", it's "sixty-and-ten" (soixante-et-dix). That means that 77 is then "sixty-and-ten-seven" (soixante-et-dix-sept).

But things only get more convoluted from there. At 80, we don't return to a normal numbering system, we instead say "four-twenty" (quatre-vingt), not unlike "four-scores". So 85 is "four-twenty-five" (quatre-vingt-cinq).

At 90, we get even more psychotic. Instead of thinking of a new name, we keep the "four-twenty" but start adding 10. 90 is "four-twenty-ten". 95 is "four-twenty-fifteen".

But remember how from 17-19 we add ten plus the number? That means that 97 is "four-twenty-ten-seven" (quatre-vingt-dix-sept)!

Light Knight : ....... Spanish numbering is fine now.

As for proper language, I see words as a means to an end. If enough people understand it and can communicate with it, it's absolutely fine, like Ebonics for example. I'm here to check out how inconsistent languages are on their own terms of defined rules, again, like how English (occasionally) tries to pull an I before E mentality. That's mainly because the rules are either so strict that it limits the language to the point that other people try and break the system. In actuality, the idea of making grammar rules is flawed in of itself, because English in its entirety is evolved from an old form of Germanic, which came from Latin and Greek sources, which, if you go far back enough, all originate from the core languages of African, Neanderthal, and Mesopotamian cultures. The sheer fact we have multiple languages at all attests to the idea that communication evolves.

So as much as I hate text speech, I... guess it's fair game.