Highly Irregular
English grammar is simpler than in many languages, but the spelling fails to correspond to pronunciation and nuances in vocabulary are complicated. We eat chicken and the meat is called chicken but we eat pig and the meat is called pork.
Highly Irregular is a humorous overview of our troubled language. Old English was evolving well enough out of its Germanic roots when the Norman French conquered England in 1066 and imposed a new vocabulary—yet the fossils of the earlier language remained. Linguist Arika Okrent takes a deep dive into particular words in a humorous overview of our troubled language.: Why does comb end in a “b”and knot begin with a “k”?
