Why English language is sometimes "lazy", sometimes not

lnxtx@feddit.nl to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 40 points –

(non-native speaker)

Is there a reason why the English language has "special" words for a specific topic, like related to court (plaintiff, defendant, warrant, litigation), elections/voting (snap election, casting a ballot)?

And in other cases seems lazy, like firefighter, firetruck, homelessness (my favorite), mother-in-law, newspaper.

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Can someone explain why a job application called "resume", like in Play/Pause/Resume?

How is it relevant?

(I'm learning English as second language).

Edit: So we're speaking French now? What? Why? You guys butchered so many words already, can you just made up one more?

Ps: Is that also the case with the word "fiancé"? I've been wondering where the hell did that "é" came from.

Because it's actually supposed to be spelled résumé, being a word borrowed from the French

As part of a job application, it's called a résumé (reh-zuh-may).

To continue playing something, it's resume (ruh-zoom).

Here is a good explanation of both words, basically play/resume comes from Latin (take up again) and CV/resume should be résumé, the past participle of resumer, to sum up, because you’re takin a summary of your experience.

The job application one should be pronounced with a long a as the second e. Despite the last e not being silent the u is still elongated. It's a recent adoption from French. Even though they are spelled the same the two words are unrelated.

the u is still elongated

Eh? Resume is /ɹəˈʒuːm/ or /ɹəˈzjuːm/. Résumé is /ˈɹɛz.(j)ʉˌmeɪ/. That's in my accent and other accents will vary in the precise vowels used. But because the accent is on the first syllable in résumé, the vowel becomes de-emphasised and, in many accents, more centralised. And that is, as far as I'm aware, nearly universal among English speakers.

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