you see in the 16th century English writers were really getting interested in standardized spelling *and* etymology. People began to think a lot about "correctness" as applied to English for the first time +
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Now English has *a lot* of financial and legal terminology borrowed from French during the middle english period. So words like "det" and "receit" have long histories with pretty stable pronunciations+
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but in the 16th century people started thinking about Latin too much and realized that lots of English from French vocab ultimately comes from LATIN! So a word like "receit" comes from "receptum" and "det" from "debitum" +
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so they're like "we should acknowledge the Latin origin of the word in the spelling! Slap that P in receit! Slap that B in det!" "should we pronounce those letters?" NO!!!!!!!! :D
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with some words they got the etymology wrong (maybe?) like the position of "Controller" which was thought to have something to do with "Computum" like "counting" so they slapped a P in it: "Comptroller." In some places they pronounce the P and others they don't"
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similar situation for words like doubt indict subtle they are post facto silent letters. They were inserted **as** silent letters.
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in conclusion, English spelling is whack for several reasons. People deliberately effing with it is just one of them Thank you for coming to my TEbD talk
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The best thing about a Medieval Studies PhD is that when a child asks why lower-case letters look the way they do, you can clear your throat and launch into, "Well it all goes back to the chanceries of Merovingian Gaul..."
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My middle was confused by a modern robotic font yesterday and I told her to count the minims.
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That... that father is me. Oh god.

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but I LEARNed something! :D
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