I've noticed some peculiarities of (American) English recently that I haven't seen discussed as peculiarities before.
Negative Questions
When asked, "Don't you want a hamburger?" an answer of "yes" means that you do want a hamburger. When asked, "You don't want a hamburger?" an answer of "yes" means that you don't want a hamburger. Why does the word order of the question change the meaning of the answer in this situation?
Anti-Homonyms
Homonyms are words that sound the same but mean different things. There are at least two English words that are pronounce differently even though they're spelled identically: live/live and read/read.
In the sentence, "I live in Texas," I pronounce "live" with a short-i sound like the "i" in "tin". However, in the sentence, "The soccer game is being broadcast live," I pronounce "live" with a long-i sound like the "i" in "time".
Similarly, I use a short-e sound, like in the word "red", when saying the word "read" in the sentence, "I read about that yesterday." But in the sentence, "I read everyday," I use a long-e sound like the word "reed".
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