You can change the spelling of one word in the English language to match how they are pronounced. What word do you pick?

ericbomb@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 237 points –

I'm picking "Colonel" needs to be respelled to match how it's pronounced.

Try to pick a word no one else has picked. What word are you respelling?

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I've always heard it pronounced kway... Is that wrong?

I can't say really. Where I live (Ireland) it's definitely pronounced "kee" but where you live "kway" might be correct. Fascinating stuff!

Quay is one of those words like bowline or boatswain that's commonly mispronounced because people see it in writing without hearing it said. Bowline "properly" rhymes with pin, and boatswain sounds like bosun.

A similar thing happened to solder in Britain, where it originally had a silent l as a nod to its Latin etymology, but some people started pronouncing it.