swordchucks:
Huh... I'm pretty sure I pronounce the "s" on the end of "ads" the same way I pronounce the "s" at the start of "serpent" or "slow". No "z" buzz at all.
Maybe it's a regional thing?
Almost everything is. The problem with language (and the reason I say ALL languages are weird) is that there's no "correct" way to do languages. While academic versions of every language are taught as the "right way to go about a language," the purpose of those academic versions is an attempt to keep regional influences from dividing common speakers. Languages at the same root level break down pretty quickly when left to their own devices. Any separation, whether it's distance or a cultural barrier, transforms a language by segregating it into a region. Regions have dialects, subregions have subdialects, and on and on until you get to the individual level; every single person has their own idiolect (a word which spellcheck on this site doesn't think exists). Without a level of standardization you get very real scenarios like regions in Italy where, despite everyone claiming to speak Italian, folks from differing corners of the country couldn't understand each other at all, but could understand folks speaking French or Arabic just fine.
To put it simply, based on how languages evolve, what's "right" today in one place or one situation could be completely "wrong" the next day or just down the street. I will admit though, I'm very excited for what the internet is doing to language, since there's a better chance now than ever for a truly universal dialect (so to speak) evolving out of it.
Back to the point though, it's usually not folks like Bill and company making those decisions, it's the folks who use the language the most (usually teenage girls). While spellcheck and autocorrect may influence how we spell when typing, the introduction of words like 'lol' and otherwise into the dictionary as recognized terms, along with alternate spellings that are accepted every day, means that it's no-one-in-particular's fault that people don't know the differences between 'learnt' and 'learned.' It's as natural as
losing words or not speaking Middle English. You can point fingers, but ultimately it's up to everyone using the language whether things survive or fade away. As a personal opinion, the fact that we had both "learnt" and "learned" at all is almost an anomaly given their similar meanings, spellings, and pronunciation.
That all being said, English is still a pretty nonsense language. To sum up it all up in a quote from my best friend, "English is a Germanic language with Latin rules, French spelling, and words from literally everywhere else."
</SociolinguisticsLesson>