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One of the aspects of English as a language is the totally irregular and exception-ridden relationship between how words are written and how they are pronounced.
Worse still, many pronunciations are context-dependent, which puzzles and infuriates everybody – both English speakers and people learning English as a second or subsequent language.
The divergences have a lot to do with the haphazard way in which Middle English evolved as a language and then on to Modern English between 1400 and 1700. The major event in English pronunciation changes, the Great Vowel Shift, occurred during the early days of the printing press, but the major part of the change occurred before the invention of moveable type. So, while the population was busy altering pronunciation, the way the words were written did not change.
Also playing a part is the high percentage of loan words in English from other languages, mainly due to the number of invasions and conquests by other countries.
English is nominally a Germanic language, but the high proportion of loan words, idioms and phrases from other languages makes it a true “mongrel” language.
Here is an attempt to explain (sort of) some of the oddities and rules in English.

How to determine which buzzing insects might be your friends…

MAKE SURE YOU GUYS KNOW THE DIFFERENCES we need the bees?❤️ pic.twitter.com/8eUiJ7If7o

— halloween ass bitch (@DADDYDARlON) October 12, 2016

Feynman and Gell-Mann, as colleagues, always engaged in low-level one-upmanship. This story from Al Seckel at Feynman Online is a classic:

…I was with both Gell-Mann and Feynman and the subject of kooky letters and phone calls came up. Feynman started relating the story of how one crazy woman called the office about some ridiculous theory of magnetic fields. He just could not get her off the phone.
Gell-Mann responded, “Oh, I remember that woman. I got her off the phone in less than a minute”.
“How’d you do that?” Feynman asked.
“I told her to call you. That you were the resident expert in the topic” said Gell-Mann.

https://twitter.com/joshua_becker/status/780494663106998275

Teacher and educator Jay Adams, who writes the excellent blog the36review, has this speech he gives to his high school students at the start of the year:

I begin each school year by telling high school students some version of the following:

“I believe you are capable of adulthood right now. I do not believe you have to wait for a certain age, or society’s permission, or a diploma, to become a person worthy of my respect. In fact, I am desperate to treat you like an adult, because I think the world is falling apart because it’s run by mental children. But I can only treat you with as much adult respect as you will let me, so please earn it.”

For most kids I teach, it’s the first time they’ve ever heard anything like that. And it works.

“All professions are conspiracies against the laity.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara

This famous quote from Shaw pretty much sums up the role of State Bars in disciplining errant lawyers. It seems that in the modern USA, only a conviction of something mega-serious like embezzlement or felonious conduct will get a lawyer disbarred at state level. Certainly, scumbaggery and ethically challenged behavior does not qualify most of the time in most states.
The good news is that one of the principals of the defunct legal entity Prenda Law, a copyright troll firm, has essentially agreed to a plea bargain with the Minnesota State Bar, under which he is barred from practising law in that state for a minimum of 4 years.
However, elsewhere, the culture of impunity appears to be alive and well.
This article about the copyright troll company Righthaven, which was shut down in late 2011 after losing a collection of lawsuits against it, is illustrative. Righthaven was clearly a sleazy and unethical enterprise from the very beginning, and its principals were adjudged to have deceived the court system on multiple occasions. Yet attempts to have the principals of Righthaven disciplined by the Nevada State Bar went nowhere. The bar brazenly bullshitted about the conduct of Righthaven, finding that there was no malfeasance even when the court system clearly pointed it out.

Following the untimely death of Frank Zappa, the man who in many ways has taken up the banner of smart libertarian man in the modern USA is Penn Jillette, the higher-profile and more extrovert half of Penn and Teller.
This is a short but very interesting interview with him. The money quote is this one, when talking about what he describes as a non-social but practical working relationship with Teller:

It turns out that respect is more durable than affection.

“Toots” Thielemans, one of the world’s great chromatic harmonica players, passed away last week. Here is his version of Edu Lobo’s classic tune “Casa Forte”, recorded for his Album “The Brasil Project”. Lousy pretend piano sound aside, this is a great version of the tune.

Time for a rousing 6:00 a.m. game of "what did I just hear the fucking cats break"

— (((Popehat))) (@Popehat) September 4, 2016