English Language
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A. Trujillo Escareno wrote (letter, May 29) about the lack of consistency exhibited by the English language. As an Englishman I can explain this--we deliberately made our language difficult in order to keep foreigners who try to speak it off balance and confused.
Since most Americans also speak a sort of English, we try to achieve the same goal with you by pronouncing our place names in unpredictable ways; for example, the river Thames is pronounced “Tems,” not “Thayms.”
My British uncle was so used to this notion that after a whirlwind tour of California he returned home to tell everyone: “Over there they have a town that is spelled “La Jolla,” but pronounced “Saint Luis Obispo.”
RICHARD JACKSON
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