• pedz@lemmy.ca
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    18 hours ago

    If you want to be serious, the word state and état are both coming from an older version of French when it was written estat. French replaced ES with É because it wasn’t pronouncing the S, while English dropped the E and kept pronouncing the S. It happened to multiple words, although some also come from Latin.

    Étrange - Strange. Époux - Spouse. École - School. Épice - Spice. Éponge - Sponge.

    It also happened with circumflex.

    Hôpital - Hospital. Forêt - Forest. Pâte - Paste.

    Here’s a whole video about exactly this.