A:
This lets off right near the Lyric Opera, right?
B:
Yeah, it's just across the bridge.
A:
That's right. The Opera Hovse.
B:
What?
A:
On the side of the Lyric, it calls it an Opera HOVSE. Like with a "v" instead of a "u".
B:
Oh, I get it.
A:
Yeah, that V/U thing drives me crazy.
B:
Because it's faux old-timey? Like "Ice-Cream Shoppe" or something?
A:
No, I'm fine with wanting to kind of harken back historically or whatever. It's an opera after all. It's clear that all opera has is a past.
B:
It certainly doesn't have a future!
A:
Zing! But, the V/U thing. Gah. Couldn't those guys hear the difference? I don't understand how they weren't constantly confused about what they were saying.
B:
Really? You know that it was still pronounced differently, right? "Hovse" with a "v" was still just pronounced like "house".
A:
Was "victory" pronounced like "u-ictory"? They just couldn't hear the difference?
B:
What? No. It just made different sounds based on what word it was in.
A:
That sounds crazy complicated.
B:
You know we do the same thing, right? "Cent" and "cat" both start with "c". The way a letter's pronounced changes with the word, there's a million other examples.
A:
So "v" used to be like "c" is now? And then, they split it into "u" and "v" at some point for whatever reason?
B:
Yeah.
A:
Oh. I thought it was more complicated than that.
B:
Nope.
A:
Do you think "c" will ever split into two letters? One for hard "c" and one for soft "c"?
B:
I don't know. Is that what "k" is?
A:
Ehhh. I thought "k" was around before "c", but who knows?
B:
Do you think it's a coincidence that a "k" looks like an "l" immediately followed by a "c"?
A:
Maybe? You think maybe "l" and "c" together used to make the hard "c" sound, and eventually they just became one letter?
B:
It's possible. I really have no idea.
A:
Man. The one time we need a linguist, and there are none around.