When my Romanian friend came to the United States he was shocked to discover we have have spelling bees. In Romanian it would make no sense; the spelling of a word is usually obvious from saying it. Then there's English. We prefer to merge multiple languages together in the most confusing way.

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." --James D. Nicoll