A humourous look at how Norman scribes and classical language nerds made English spelling even worse. I play nine different characters (including myself) in a variety of accents.
English pronunciation changed radically just as English spelling was standardised. To make things worse, the Normans had brought French spelling conventions to the language which remained. Then, during the renaissance, nerdy types decided to add in letters from Greek and Latin to show the origin of words, rather than their pronunciation.
00:00 Introduction
00:18 Who can we blame?
00:30 William the Conqueror
01:00 Sketch - Norman scribes
02:03 Loss of special Anglo-Saxon letters
03:00 The renaissance and etymological spelling
03:14 Sketch - inkhorn words
05:44 Viewer stats
05:56 Sketch - Boys' topics