OUR VIEW: English can be frustrating language

Language is a funny thing. There are hundreds of languages in the world and yet we all still manage to communicate with each other. Some stick around, but many forms of communication go the way of Beta. Brigham Young’s Deseret Alphabet is one of these. The Deseret Alphabet seems so bizarre upon first thought, even though it’s a great deal more logical than our modern English, which is now accepted more places than Mastercard. This is odd, because English is a strange, often frustrating language, which even its native speakers seldom learn fully or correctly.
    Before a bunch of angry letters to the editor flood our inbox, consider a few common grammatical errors: its/it’s, there/their/they’re, your/you’re. Contrary to what’s acceptable on Facebook, these are not interchangeable. “Its” is a possessive adjective while “it’s” is a contraction of “it” and “is”. When about to write “it’s”, take a moment and consider whether the word you’re using could be replaced with “it is”. Same with “they’re” and “you’re” – could you instead say “they are” or “you are”? If it’s a possessive, use “their” or “your”. “There” is used as an indication of a location. To/too/two is another common mix-up. “Too” denotes an addition or higher degree of something, while “two” is the number sandwiched between one and three. “To” is the most-used of the three, expressing a direction or relationship with something.
    Silent letters are found throughout our language, making things more difficult. Third-graders everywhere have to remember there’s an h in “ghost.” Later on, we find a p in “subpoena” and a c in “indict”. Some words are just plain hard to spell, too, such as “bureaucrat” or “necessary.”
    And then there are those words which differentiate from each other by only a letter or two but have very different meanings. The mix-up of “apostle” and “apostate” recently, for example, made national news. Thank you very much, spell check. Even if something is spelled correctly doesn’t mean it’s right.
    English is a pretty messed-up language when it comes right down to it, with plenty of hard-and-fast rules that need breaking with every other word. There are words and spellings from every corner of the globe, making it a conglomeration of different languages, as well as being an independent tongue. It is a spectrum of contradictions and exceptions. Can we really blame Brother Brigham for trying to simplify the process?