25 июн. 2011 г.

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Реформа английского правописания по Твену

Когда-то давно Марк Твен предложил провести реформу английского правописания. Цель этой реформы - попытаться привести письмо в соответствие с произношением. Текст предложенной реформы прилагается ниже:

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter c would be dropped to be replased either by k or s, and likewise x would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which c would be retained would be the ch formation, which will be dealt with later.

Year 2 might reform w spelling, so that which and one would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish y replasing it with i and Iear 4 might fiks the g/j anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.

Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez c, y and x — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais ch, sh, and th rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Как вы, наверное, убедились еще раз - Твен был отличным шутником!

22 мая 2011 г.

11 интересных, но никчемных фактов об английском

Здесь собраны интересные, но, на мой взгляд, бесполезные факты, связанные с английским языком и англоязычной культурой:

1) The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

2) No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.

3) "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".

4) There are only 4 words in the English language which end in dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

5) In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

6) Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

7) The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.

8) The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start.

9) TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.

10) The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.

И последний факт:

11) "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

23 апр. 2011 г.