This -cal suffix is probably the most confusing one to me as a non-native speaker. It's tempting to relate it to -co in Portuguese, but it feels so inconsistent. Do I go to the botanic or botanical garden? That's the jardim botânico. Is this a historic or historical moment? Momento histórico. Are you casting a magic or magical spell? Feitiço mágico. Is this a strategical or strategic decision? Decisão estratégica, now it's -ca but it's just because Portuguese is woke and has grammatical gender, it's still a simple suffix.
Sorry, off-topic but it's a pet peeve of mine, especially as an ESOL teacher lol
English is my first language and I kind of pride myself on my reading ability (I can also write, but I like it less, and please don't trawl my hexbear account for proof I'm a good writer, you won't find it), and I have no idea when you're supposed to add a -cal suffix! Every one of your examples there I'm like, huh, I don't know. I'm sure there's some rule about it, I bet you could look in a style guide and find the answer, but most native speakers don't know it, we kind of just say one or the other based on a whim (or at least I do). It might also be that there's not one correct answer, I wouldn't be surprised if different style guides had different advice about this.
It's a very reasonable pet peeve for you to have, all in all!
Not only is English mashed together from different language families (Romantic and Germanian), it has random ass loan words, phrases, and grammar outside of its phylum. It's why the C in "cyst" is pronounced differently than the one in "cat," then you have bullshit like "tsunami" (Japanese) or "kefir" (Russian, Turkic) that use the same sounds for Cs without having any Cs.
Letting the English escape from their island was a mistake.
This -cal suffix is probably the most confusing one to me as a non-native speaker. It's tempting to relate it to -co in Portuguese, but it feels so inconsistent. Do I go to the botanic or botanical garden? That's the jardim botânico. Is this a historic or historical moment? Momento histórico. Are you casting a magic or magical spell? Feitiço mágico. Is this a strategical or strategic decision? Decisão estratégica, now it's -ca but it's just because Portuguese is woke and has grammatical gender, it's still a simple suffix.
Sorry, off-topic but it's a pet peeve of mine, especially as an ESOL teacher lol
Trust me I'm a native English speaker and it confuses me to.
I don't think anyone really knows how to speak English properly. Tis a silly language.
English is my first language and I kind of pride myself on my reading ability (I can also write, but I like it less, and please don't trawl my hexbear account for proof I'm a good writer, you won't find it), and I have no idea when you're supposed to add a -cal suffix! Every one of your examples there I'm like, huh, I don't know. I'm sure there's some rule about it, I bet you could look in a style guide and find the answer, but most native speakers don't know it, we kind of just say one or the other based on a whim (or at least I do). It might also be that there's not one correct answer, I wouldn't be surprised if different style guides had different advice about this.
It's a very reasonable pet peeve for you to have, all in all!
Vibes based language.
The spelling and pronunciation is overall inconsistent to the absurd degree.
Not only is English mashed together from different language families (Romantic and Germanian), it has random ass loan words, phrases, and grammar outside of its phylum. It's why the C in "cyst" is pronounced differently than the one in "cat," then you have bullshit like "tsunami" (Japanese) or "kefir" (Russian, Turkic) that use the same sounds for Cs without having any Cs.
Letting the English escape from their island was a mistake.
Yeah, that happens when you have a Germanic base slathered with french and Latin vocabulary and sprinkled with loanwords from nearly every continent.
And never having a spelling reform.
Jesus Christ, we only invented spelling a few hundred years ago and you want to reform it already?