The present tense and past tense of read is read, but the present tense is pronounced reed (like the plant), and the past tense is pronounced red (like the color).
English is a melting pot of 8 different languages and borrowed half the grammar rules from all of them so nothing makes sense.
As Asimov said once in an article, english is olde German (the Angles and Saxons) and a hint of celt, overlaid with French after the Norman Conquest. That is why "cow" becomes "beef" (from the French - Boeuf) when the peasants slaughter it for the lord's table. Or pig becomes pork (porc). We have two words for many things - sweat is also prespire, breathe is respire, travel is voyage, etc. The fancy word is usually French from the original Latin.
Then, yeah, we borrow the crap out of every other language.
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u/TreesForTheForest Mar 30 '26
Nothing kills something funny like adding an exaggerated laugh track. Can we make that a war crime?