The idea is to sit back and make choices that make sense when there is a conflict or that are more aligned with the rest if the language, and avoid messes like "biweekly".
Or "Aural" and "Oral"
Or Ox > Oxen, Fox > Foxes
I love the different dialects that are developing of it. I particularly love my country's variant, enriched with Maori. "Kia ora bro" as a greeting captures our spirit nicely.
I love the fact that English "pursues other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary". It's a glorious organic mess. Much like humanity.
Of course, I'm glad I'm not having to learn it as a second language.
"Of course, I'm glad I'm not having to learn it as a second language."
As I said, I agree with the sentiment :)
The question is: is anything planned?
People don't even use the correct possessive version of 'it' on the internet.
Ox became Oxen because the plural 'en' was the productive plural construction at the time, and it made more sense than writing 'Oxes'.
For the other words there might have been a historical reason (or just no reason at all) for it.
For example, the AF is oblivious to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlan (unless a word there ends hitting common usage)
> Some verlan words, such as meuf, have become so commonplace that they have been included in the Petit Larousse[3] and a doubly "verlanised" version was deemed necessary, so the singly verlanised meuf became feumeu; similarly, the verlan word beur, derived from arabe, has become accepted into popular culture such that it has been re-verlanised to yield rebeu
This communication, from 2001, on the future of the French language for example http://www.academie-francaise.fr/lavenir-de-la-langue-franca... talks at length about verlan. Just to translate a small excerpt:
A language that stays still is a dying language. Ours is enriching in proportions never seen before. What the 21th century will bring us is verlan. It would be useless to fight it, as oral language has always preceded written language.
I think the Académie is much more competent than many people here think it is.
As a french, it is not muddling that I want but reasoning.
Huh I never noticed this peculiarity of English before. "I am an Italian/Australian/Canadian" - fine. "I am an English/French/Swedish" - hell no. Traditionally you'd say Frenchman, nowadays you'd avoid the gender and use "I am French" directly as an adjective.
Anyone know why -an words can be used as a noun and -sh words can't?
The English language readily makes adjectives from nouns, but not the other way round. Nominalized adjectives are used for collective groups at most (which is why you can say "the French") but rarely become regular nouns.
What is the point of having such confusion?
Also, why having dictionaries at all? And who decides which one is right?
Why not have a body made up of experts who make that decisions once and for all when natural evolution leads to bad results?
Exactly the opposite of why you think we have them, apparently. In English-speaking countries, dictionaries document existing usage, they don’t try to influence it. No modern dictionary has any opinion on what usage is “correct”, and you can find a lot of extremely non-standard things in the most prestigious dictionaries.