We take it for granted now, but I’m sure we all questioned the word at one point in our lives, the shortest word guaranteed to fool any child who is an intuitive spelling pro if they don’t already know the word’s spelling.
Fun anecdote, in DC the east/west streets are named A St, B St, C St, and so on. But not i street. Capital i could be confused with L Street, so all the signs are written “Eye St”
Ewe, though it’s spelled weird, does at least fit its context. When looking into specific gendered terms for species, someone could expect a few weird ones.
On a side note, I find it funny how the word ewe is banned from several places because all it’s ever used for is to replace the “you” in things like an F-bomb. It’s like an accidental/indirect swear word.
“Hey bro, what’s a female sheep called?”
“Oh that’s easy, it’s ew–” ban hammer crashes down out of nowhere
By all accounts, “one” should rhyme with “stone”, but bear in mind that we also have “done” which is pretty close, as well as “gone” which is pretty out-there by comparison. (This suggests the compromise pronunciation of “scone” should be “scun”, but on the other hand…)
There’s also that in some accents / dialects, the word “own” fills that particular pronunciation niche, necessitating an alternative pronunciation for the number.
The theory is that a non-standard regional pronunciation is the, uh, one that caught on everywhere else.
Fun fact about “two”: It’s the “w” making the vowel sound, and the “o” is silent (compare Latin “duo”). Even more strangely, it’s “w” that makes the vowel sound in “who” as well! It was originally spelled “hwo” until all “hw” words were forced to conform to all the other modifiers where the h goes second. It’s also hwy / why the h sounds out first in old-fashioned pronunciations of words like whip / hwip.
Eye.
We take it for granted now, but I’m sure we all questioned the word at one point in our lives, the shortest word guaranteed to fool any child who is an intuitive spelling pro if they don’t already know the word’s spelling.
Fun anecdote, in DC the east/west streets are named A St, B St, C St, and so on. But not i street. Capital i could be confused with L Street, so all the signs are written “Eye St”
You’d think at that point they’d just name all the streets like would be appreciated.
Eye Street does live up to its name, it is the most interesting street.
And as soon as the young spelling pro gets “eye”, throw “ewe” at them.
Ewe, though it’s spelled weird, does at least fit its context. When looking into specific gendered terms for species, someone could expect a few weird ones.
On a side note, I find it funny how the word ewe is banned from several places because all it’s ever used for is to replace the “you” in things like an F-bomb. It’s like an accidental/indirect swear word.
“Hey bro, what’s a female sheep called?”
“Oh that’s easy, it’s ew–” ban hammer crashes down out of nowhere
I was just thinking this, but with the word “one”. And also “two”
By all accounts, “one” should rhyme with “stone”, but bear in mind that we also have “done” which is pretty close, as well as “gone” which is pretty out-there by comparison. (This suggests the compromise pronunciation of “scone” should be “scun”, but on the other hand…)
There’s also that in some accents / dialects, the word “own” fills that particular pronunciation niche, necessitating an alternative pronunciation for the number.
The theory is that a non-standard regional pronunciation is the, uh, one that caught on everywhere else.
Fun fact about “two”: It’s the “w” making the vowel sound, and the “o” is silent (compare Latin “duo”). Even more strangely, it’s “w” that makes the vowel sound in “who” as well! It was originally spelled “hwo” until all “hw” words were forced to conform to all the other modifiers where the h goes second. It’s also hwy / why the h sounds out first in old-fashioned pronunciations of words like whip / hwip.
And eight.