we don’t say ‘readed,’ ‘bleeded’ or ‘speeded’

Let's not loose site of the fact that Americans speak and write in American English, what we believe to be correct diction and grammar often flies in the face of the rules of proper English. For example: The FBI is reading my e-mail vs. MI6 are reading my posts.

Regardless, I think a poorly worded sentence can still convey the intended thought; I ain't got no good English.

Way back when I had a friend in high school who was an exchange student from Finland and he liked to point out some of the differences between the rules of English and the spoken form of English. He like to point out that it is proper to say let's go eating but no one ever says that. Also when knocking at the a door and answering the question "who's there?" that the correct response is "it is I" but who says that?

Not trying to pile on but this gem came to mind:

This little poem came about as an exercise for multi-national translation personnel at the NATO headquarters in Paris. English wasn't so hard to learn, they found, but English pronunciation is a killer.

After trying the poem, one native French interpreter said he'd prefer to spend six months at hard labor than reading six lines aloud.

English is Tough Stuff

Dearest creature in creation
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I: Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar.
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous, clamor
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and droll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangor.
Soul but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, knob, bosom, transom, oath.
Through the differences seem little,
We say actual, but also victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, Conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succor, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye.
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, brass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging.
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation - think of Psyche!
Is it paling, stout and spiky?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough -
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advise is to give it up!!!

Oh my. That is quite the poem. It does elucidate the issues with the language, a feature I love because it facilitates puns.
Back on topic.

It's taken me 50+ years to learn English and now incorrect usage grates. One learned you do not end a sentence with a preposition or any number of other incorrect grammatical problems. Those who massacred the language as such were once considered ignorant stump jumpers, ridge runners or worse. In general people who did not seem to get what was taught in school. Did that deter them? No, they kept right on talking and writing as idiots and eventually some public figure felt it cool to "relate" to various segments of this population and made the ignorance sound cool.

Language clearly evolves and like much change, it's not always for the better. Another example is the misuse of prepositions... "Where are you at" . Today many less than ignorant people speak that way. So while I understand that a language evolves, driven by what is acceptable, it still grates to my old ears. That aside, in the example I used, at does little for clarification. "At" is in fact superfluous. It adds nothing but verbal noise.

Given the texting craze, I see further language evolution in store. Fb offers a preview of a trend to brevity, mostly without loosing clarity. U r no good. Frankly, I prefer that than prepositions at the end of sentences or butchering of irregular verbs. So hanged is ignored for hung and that evolves into hng.

One more thought on this matter. English is the most widely spoken language on this globe. Nearly someone in every country speaks the language to varying degrees. The poem outlines the difficulties. I see texting word structure as the "Basic" of Star war fame, the language that most species in the galaxy spoke or understood. The Basic of earth will be extracted from texted English.

Otis wrote, "Also when knocking at the a door and answering the question "who's there?" that the correct response is "it is I" but who says that?"

Who says that? My mother!!!! Seriously. Drives me crazy.

Almost all grammarians disagree on the use of a preposition at the end of a sentence on at least some occasions. For example:

"What did you step on?"

You could ask someone, "On what did you step?" Pompous, rather. I doubt if you would say, "What did you step?"

Examples taken from Grammarian Girl.

Practically for every "rule" in English, there is an exception. And some of the "rules" are not even rules, but have been around so long people think they are rules.

What I like about English is that it incorporates so many other languages. It's not stifled in the way that French is. Makes it tougher to learn in some respects, but what fun!

A preposition at the end of a sentence? Horrors!

That is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put!