The word pairings that I find most interesting are the words that are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently and are completely unrelated.

For example, "lead" which is pronounced one way to mean the element and a different way as in "to lead".

I knew a dozen or so at one time, but lost can't remember most of them anymore. It also depends on your accent and dialect of course.

When it used to be "finalize" instead of lock, I thought it should have been spelt "finalise", with an s, but when i wrote it, it said it was wrong.
The same thing applies for many words that end in ize/ise

Which is correct?

depends which side you're on, the correct side or the British side

feel should feal

plurals that end with an 'i'

On a related but slightly different note, I've always wondered if the correct pronunciation of Cretin in America is actually meant to sound like kreetan or if it's just your average idiot actor who can't pronounce it correctly.

Whenever I hear it I always want to yell at the TV "HE'S NOT FROM CRETE YOU CRETIN"

But if it's the normal pronunciation I'll just have to keep quiet :)

@ Stripy

I'm sure that's not the "correct" pronunciation of cretin, but it sure as hell is the commonly accepted one!

Facetious. And I'm being serious, not.... Well, anyway.

Triskelli: Modern lexicography holds that usage is the only real yardstick of correctness. /krit@n/ it is.

@Stripy: You must watch too much American TV.
Cretin: e and i are short vowels.

I agree with UOSnu 100%, usage is key here. Speakers define a language for themselves (look at Ebonics)

I've always pronounced Cretin the proper way with all short vowels (and I'm American) but I have noticed that a lot of TV and movie actors in the US say it with the long e.

one - Where is the "w"?
two - Where the heck did that "w" come from?

knee, that word bothers me alot. Although I don't have any problem with the Knowing family. Also I hate "Subtle" because it is pronounced so much differently then it is written.

and I always remembered "Friend" by thinking of "Fri" (The last e=day in the school week) + "End" (What happens on Fri. ;)

I once heard the pnemonic "Fry your friends till the end". Really a sick way to remember the spelling of that word, worthy of Hannibal Lecter.

Crazy Anglican: Sound shifts, my friend.

K exist for two reasons and only two
to put the hard c sound behind vowels
to make word that start with n not be spelled the same for two meanings

For the first allegation, that's clearly not what it does, cf. cause, curtain, cascade, and cow. As far as the second, denis, the k in knight and know were pronounced within the last hundred years.

isn't the letter 'c' someone redundant in the english language? in theory, you should be able to put a 'K' or 'S' in its place....

i mean, i know that we pronounce words with 'C' and 'S' in different ways, but we could just play around with the vowels to change it, no?

Sure, there are a lot of funny letter things going on. Why does G sometimes sound like a J? Why have X when we could just use KS. Why does the X make a Z sound when the first letter of a word, why not just use a Z? Inquiring minds want to know.

Better still, consider 'ough'

bough rhymes with cow
cough rhymes with off
dough rhymes with no
tough rhymes with huff
ought rhymes with caught
through rhymes with brew
thorough rhymes with burgh
hiccough is hiccup
lough is loch (with the Scottish ch)
hough is hock

Actually, thorough rhymes with bureau.

Try putting a stake in a steak. (or was that the other way around?)

@Draugner - not over here it doesn't - it's thour -uh, and bur-oh

@Dave Bishop

When it used to be "finalize" instead of lock, I thought it should have been spelt "finalise", with an s, but when i wrote it, it said it was wrong.
The same thing applies for many words that end in ize/ise

Which is correct?

Both are perfectly 'correct' in the UK (I'm in the UK) for some bizarre reason people think the '-ize' spelling is an americanism and that UK spellers should spell such words with 'ise' endings. However, '-ize' endings come from the french and were used in British spelling quite happily for many years. Some UK dictionaries still ist '-ize' endings first and '-ise' endings as being an acceptable alternative spelling.

That said, people make the language and if enough people use '-ise' then that will become the 'correct' spelling with '-ize' as an acceptable alternative.

If you are doing exams, it is a good idea to check if certain spellings are acceptable to the exam body.

@pete

'@Draugner - not over here it doesn't - it's thour -uh, and bur-oh'

Never assume people pronunciate words the same, accents very immensely. 'Home' for example rhymes with 'game' in a scots accent, but doesn't in an English accent.

E.T. phone home!

@Maniac - 'hame' rhymes with 'game' - it's a different (dialect) word. If a Scot pronounced 'home', it would sound like 'home'. But then when does a dialect change the word is a very different debate - there is a large body of support for Scots being a separate, although related, language, rather than a dialect of English.