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[citation needed] As an outcome, English spelling is a system of weak rules with many exceptions and ambiguities. Most phonemes in English can be spelled in more than one way. E.g. the words f ea r and p ee r contain the same sound in different spellings.
Excluded are the numerous spellings which fail to make the pronunciation obvious without actually being at odds with convention: for example, the pronunciation / s k ə ˈ n ɛ k t ə d i / [1] [2] of Schenectady is not immediately obvious, but neither is it counterintuitive.
the macron (English poetry marking, lēad pronounced / l iː d /, not / l ɛ d /), lengthening vowels, as in Māori; or indicating omitted n or m (in pre-Modern English, both in print and in handwriting). the breve (English poetry marking, drŏll pronounced / d r ɒ l /, not / d r oʊ l /), shortening vowels; the umlaut , altering Germanic vowels
English has generally preserved the original spelling when borrowing words; and even more importantly, English began to be widely written and printed during the Middle English period: the later development of modern English included a Great Vowel Shift and many other changes in phonology, yet the older spellings, which are no longer phonetic ...
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In most dialects of North American English, intervocalic /t/ and /d/ are pronounced as an alveolar flap [ɾ] when the following vowel is unstressed or word-initial, a phenomenon known as flapping. In accents with both flapping and Canadian raising, / aɪ / or / aʊ / before a flapped /t/ may still be raised, even though the flap is a voiced ...
Partly because English has never had any official regulating authority for spelling, such as the Spanish Real Academia Española, the French Académie française, the German Council for German Orthography, the Danish Sprognævn, and the Thai Royal Society, English spelling is considered irregular and complex compared to that of other languages.
In Modern English, the short form has generally become standard, but the spelling ea reflects the formerly-longer pronunciation. [1] The words that were affected include several ending in d, such as bread, head, spread, and various others, including breath, weather, and threat.