Apology to a Kindergartener
As the parent of a kindergartener, I constantly find myself apologizing for English orthography. Consider the numbers from one to ten, for instance. Of these, only "six" and "ten" are spelled in a sensible way. "Five" and "nine" make a certain amount of sense once one has mastered the silent-e convention, but that convention is bizarre in itself, inconsistently applied (cf. "give" and "zine"), and only one of a dozen ways to make a vowel long. "Seven" and "three" might not seem so bad to the jaded eye -- but why not "sevven"? Shouldn't "seven" rhyme with "even"? And why make the long "e" with a double-"e"? Why not "threa" (cf. "sea") or "threy" (cf. "key") or "thre" (cf. "me") or "thry" (cf. "party")? "Two"? Why on Earth the "w"? Why the "two", "to", "too" distinction? "Four"? Same thing: "four", "for", "fore"! "One"? Same again: "one", "won", and arguably "wun". Really, "one" it starts with an "o"? My daughter thought I was kidding when I told her this, like the time I told her "dog" was spelled "jxqmpil". It's not much different from that. We're just used to it and so fail to notice. Worst of all is "eight". If English spelling were ever brought to court, it could be tried, convicted, and hung on the word "eight" alone.