I would like to draw peoples attention to the website Engoo.
https://engoo.com/app/daily-news
It has an interesting article about phantonyms. One important note, phantonym seems to be a novel word. Only a few dictionaries mention it, but publications like New York Times have used the word phantonym.
As every student learns English they realize there are a lot of oddities in the English language. Words like rough are pronounced “ruff” but words like dough are pronounced “do~”. English has conrtronyms which are words that have opposite meanings like clip. You can clip an article out of a newspaper or clip several articles together. Words can have silent letters you shouldn’t pronounce like soften, island, or could. These three words are pronounced “sofen”, “ailand”, and “cood”. Pronunciation can be completely different for the same spelling like read. You can “reed” a book now or you “red” a book in the past. Pluralizing words can be difficult. Ox becomes oxen but box becomes boxes. Spelling can be done multiple ways for the same pronunciation like byte, bite, and bight. All three words sound the same. I am sure there are many oddities I did not mention.
This article discusses the oddity of words appearing to mean one thing but actually meaning something unexpected. I encourage you to read the article as it is very interesting. These phantonyms can even confuse native English speakers. The article mentions noisome as an example. I have heard many native speakers use this word instead of the word noisy. The prefix in is also mentioned in the article and can also be confusing. The word inexpensive means not expensive while invaluable means very valuable. Sometimes I hear native speakers just add in to a word trying to make a new one. I have heard a native speaker make up the word inpowerful. I had to ask the speaker what she meant.
What do you think? Was the article interesting? Are there things that just confuse you about English? Are there oddities in your own native language? I’d love to hear then from you.
If you are interested in learning English check out my profile at Cafetalk.com where I offer private tutoring.
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