Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 13, 2022

Hate to see Rat walk away half out of his mind. Hopefully, he will calm down.

Pig has “woud,” and he’s standing behind a fence. Coincidence?

Oh, the wonders of English phonetics.

Would “Coud” rhyme with Wood or Loud? Would “Would” sound like Wood or Wowed?

If you did pronounce the L, would it sound like cowled?

Jean Harlow (1930’s movie star) once mispronounced someone’s name. The person explained that one letter in his name was silent, “like the ‘t’ in ‘Harlow’”.

Though the tough cough and hicough, they do it thoroughly.

Silent letters are waste…most certainly!

Get the L out of here!

No Goat, you shoud have argued.

I’ve got a list around here somewhere (probably on one of the old digital assistants I don’t use any more) of words that are examples of every single letter of the alphabet being silent. Two or three of them are a bit of a stretch (for V, there’s a dialect in which “fivepence” is pronounced “fippence”).

Rat is about to make a PUBIC statement

Should rather read “cound”, with a silent "n"….

if a woodchuck could chuck woud.

Not pronouncing the “L”? That’s not gould. There shood be a law.

Hey Rat, ever tried to learn French?

Move the L a little bit and you have cloud!

Huh. TIL. Apparently the “l” was deliberately added by analogy with the “l” in should/would (which, coming from “shall” and “will” have stems including the “l”, which was previously pronounced).

It’s as artificial as Noah Webster’s reforms, in other words (which, as a Brit, are mildly irksome, of course – but at least they made sense in context).

You should realllly have said something.

Wouda, shouda, couda…

Shoud he? I woud if I coud.

Fortunately we has only phonetic langauages. Angréji very confusing.

I wonder what he would do if he found out there’s this place called ‘Worcester’….

Rat you look constipated ! Take some Ex – lax ;-)

And then there’s “solder.” Why in the world would anyone not pronounce the “l” in that? Americans, I’m looking at you.

The spelling of the many of the words that now seem oddly spelled compared to how they are pronounced was established several centuries ago when English was pronounced with what we’d now think is a thick Scottish burr. So many of the now silent letters and oddball spellings were, at the time, actually pronounced. For instance, the “right” was actually pronounced something like “ricght.” Once again, it’s HISTORY, folks!

And you don’t pronounce the P in “psychiatrist”, the K in “knife”, or the T in “filet”. Also, why don’t “cough”, “bough”, “rough” and “though” all rhyme?

I wood knot too.

Would is a variant of Willed where the ou is same as German o umlaut which sounds like the i of willed so the L was pronounced at one time several centuries ago.

So is he saying Get the L Out of There? Very possible.

I have great respect and pity for ESL speakers.

Rotsa Ruck !

And it probably only has an L because “should” and “would” do, and it sort of transferred. Should and would take the L from Anglo-Saxon (sceoldan and wolde, shall and will). Could doesn’t, the L was added.

What a knot head!

Even the silent letters aren’t safe from Rat’s petty complaining.

Starting today I will be pronouncing the “L” in those words…who is with me? We can start a movement.

In “could” the “L” is silent. Just like the word Queue which is a “Q” followed by four silent letters.

Spelling in American English is crazy. Far too many words are not spelled anything like they are pronounced. Took me a year to learn to read and write Korean as spelling is phonetic, spelled exactly the same as the words are pronounced. v 12 years of being taught American English and still having to look up words to find out how they are spelled

Goat wood have been wrong if he had argued.

I pronounce it in my mind. It makes the tinfoil rattle.

I don’t know what the L is going on here.

The people that drive me up the wall are the ones who pronounce the “h” in words that begin with “wh”, but put it before the “w”! Hwat’s up with THAT!

I live for live concerts!

Always protesting…..no wonder he’s always looking for answers

And then there’s French. Good luck with that!

And what about colonel and kernel.

English is not a phonetic language. Helpful hint.

If he wants to do rants on English language weirdness, he can spend the next few years doing a rat version of George Carlin. English is not only richer from older languages and many invasions, it is also weirder.

A very gould question, Goat.

When I was little I was so mad at silent e which I kept forgetting in spelling that I drew the evil letter behind bars taking up a whole notebook page and wishing I could do worse to it.

No one pronounces the “p” is words like “raspberry”, “psychic”, and “pterodactyl”, either. Maybe someone should.

Ask him to pronounce Featherstonehaugh.

I read somewhere that all those letters we have in various words that are “silent” used to NOT be silent way way back in the day several hundred years ago.

Give ’em L, Rat

If we pronounced the “L”, we’d sound like sheep herders talking about shearing.

Victor Borge…Phoenetic Punctuation!

I agree. He’s crazy….

There’s Noel in Christmas. Is that a paradox?

Rat, it is better to remain silent, and be thought a fool…….

Dr Seuss’s The Tough Coughs as he Ploughs the Dough

Comments today r gold. Thanks to all.

As a native Bostonian, I feel that way about almost every “R” in 90% of the words.

Waiting for Rat to discover Psy- words

And no one pronounces the ‘o’,either

So clever, Steven.

This reminds me of the time Pearls ran out of " iii " ’s … :D

Look how cute Rat is when he’s angry. I’ve never noticed that before.

No know.

Good thing Rat didn’t grow up in Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch.

French would drive him fully out of his mind.

Silent letters do serve a purpose; They help to distinguish between homophones (words with the same sound but different spellings and meanings) in writing. Thanks to silent letters, you can know the difference between two, to, and too.

I’m angry over the abominaton that is “could of”.

Coulda, Shoulda, Wou[l]da. The New Three Stooges, with Pig as the prime target….

Shoud have done this one on Christmas. Noel.

NO L? Oh well…

This makes a goold point.

Goat’s question needed to be “Shoud I have argued?”

What the L was that about?

Should Goat of argued?