Episode 149: Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
The History of English Podcast
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The Difference Between Will, Can and Should in English
In early modern english, the language had wood, shod and cood. The long vowel sound became short over the course of the 15 hundreds. But again, wood and should were spelt with an l to reflect an l sound that once existed in those words. Cood was spelled without an l because it never had an l sound. All three words were used in similar ways grammatically. So it was just a matter of time before people started to spell them all the same way.
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