What are some examples of distinctions that exist in written English but not spoken English? Do you also know of any examples in other languages?

submitted by cqtz from self.AskSaidIt

Basically, differences in spelling, punctuation, etc. that aren't in spoken English.

There are some obvious homophones like its/it's and there/their.

I originally thought that the spellings of Kiev/Kyiv would fit, but I don't actually know if they have different pronunciations. The other example I thought of is weirder, and it's "trans woman" vs "transwoman". The former is seen as more trans friendly than the latter due to the word "trans" being used like other adjectives.

There are probably better examples out there.

Edit: There are also regional spelling differences like gray/grey and color/colour, but I don't think most of them have significant differences in meaning. (If you know some spellings that carry different connotations, I'd like to see them. I can't recall any at the moment.) I'd also associate regional spelling differences with accents (which are a part of spoken English).

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[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]cqtz[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    I've looked at too much content related to them so it was the second example I thought of. I do wish I could've come up with a better example.

    [–]jet199 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    The French don't pronounce half their language so I assume they have a load.

    [–]fschmidt 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    Too many to count, some with more than two homophones.

    [–]Anman 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    English is gay. Like the OP here. It is a bastard language that steals from every one and has no base line structure. Because of that it devolves in such a way that it gets worse over time.

    [–]Alienhunter 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Double plus good mean say comrade.

    [–]Alienhunter 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

    You mean besides homophones?

    Don't think English really has any. There's certain textual abbreviations and symbols like & which are used often but those can be spoken. Etc. RSVP. No huge distinctions.

    Oriental languages tend to have a much larger difference between the written and spoken word due to the nature of ideographic writing. Modern Chinese for example doesn't have a pronunciation distinction for it's third person pronoun, but if you write it you can specify whether it is masculine, feminine, or neuter, as one prime example.

    There's also a lot of words that make sense when you see them printed but become wildly confusing in text due to similar pronunciation. The famous shi shi shi shi shi shi (The blind poet in the stone lions den) poem is a prime example. Though this is merely wordplay and not an attempt at any serious communication.

    I can't use English to explain the structure of Chinese ideographs well because English really lacks the words to describe them, well it doesn't, the words exist, but nobody knows what they mean unless they've studied Chinese at which point it just becomes easier to use the Chinese words instead.

    I guess Magic vs Magik is one you'll see Wickins use sometimes. Christians make a distinction in meaning between god and God that isn't clear in spoken language.

    [–]cqtz[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    I guess Magic vs Magik is one you'll see Wickins use sometimes. Christians make a distinction in meaning between god and God that isn't clear in spoken language.

    Those are the kinds of examples I was looking for! Another example involving capitalization that I found online was conservative "resistant to change" and Conservative "part of the Conservative party".

    What prompted me to ask this question was probably things like emoticons :), internet slang like "h8", and jokes involving homophones. I'm kind of obsessed with this kind of stuff for some reason.

    I've heard of your examples about Chinese before. I think the Chinese writing system is interesting because there are few other modern writing systems like it. There are some interesting looking characters like 串 "string/chain of objects" and 凹 "concave". I like looking up the origins of Chinese characters the same way I like looking up the origins of words in other languages (I use Wiktionary, and I don't know how accurate it is).

    Another thing I find interesting is false friends between Japanese and Chinese. One I've heard of is 勉強 "to study" (Japanese) / "reluctantly" (Chinese).

    [–]yelgy 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    the distinction between sexhavers (no soul) and khvs (besouled beings) is never spoken