BUFFALO, N.Y. — Why do some of us pronounce the month "February" without the second "R"? Linguistics professor Jeff Good has some ideas.

Good says to think about the word "library," with the same structure as February. There’s that "br" followed by a vowel. Now say the word "red" out loud. Notice how that "R" sound continues into the "E." That can be a tough sequence for us to pronounce, especially fast.

Good says over time, someone might have just skipped the "R" and people caught on. He adds that English evolved chaotically over time, across multiple continents.

“Speech is very variable," Good said. "And then everybody has to make sense of the variation. And different people converge on different understandings of what was an accident, what was intended. 'Oh, I think the person meant that.' And like, I'm a child and my parents keep saying February, February, February, and maybe my grandparents say February, but, you know, I'm going to actually what you're really going to do with children, generally when they're young, they might focus on their parent's speech; eventually they shift to their peers.”

Then we get all those fun sayings. You’ve probably heard the term "grammar police." In France, Good says, there actually is a government-sponsored language board that governs the standard language.

Then there's Wednesday. We don’t traditionally pronounce the day like it’s written. Going way back, Good says Wednesday, and other days of the week, were named after Norse gods. It would’ve been Woden’s Day. Somewhere, it was changed to Wednesday. The thought is that we say it the way we do because if you list off the days of the week, it’s easier to say Wednesday instead of Wed-nes-day.