About badly deteriorated pronunciation and spelling: Sometimes spelling tricks us in to mispronunciations "dour" looks as if it would rhyme with "sour" "forbade" has a silent e but a short "a" similar problem with "respite" Who would guess that "ye" in "Gather ye rosebuds while you may" is pronounced two different ways? The reason "bury" is pronounced "berry" is that unlike jury, injury and fury it is not from Latin. You are not going to miss that"ch" is silent in "yacht" and "chthonic" and you had better not miss that it is silent in "fuchsia", but "schism" trips people up. Why isn't "interest" a three- syllable word? Why isn't "conduit" (like circuit and biscuit and triscuit) a two-syllable word? (Well it is, but NO ONE says it that way) And then there are ridiculous problems like victual.
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