Posted on 06/20/2009 12:05:16 PM PDT by JoeProBono
The spelling mantra "i before e except after c" is no longer worth teaching, according to the government. Advice sent to teachers says there are too few words which follow the rule and recommends using more modern methods to teach spelling to schoolchildren. The document, entitled Support for Spelling, is being distributed to more than 13,000 primary schools. But some people believe the phrase should be retained because it is easy to remember and is broadly accurate. Bethan Marshall, a senior English lecturer at King's College London, said: "It's a very easy rule to remember and one of the very few spelling rules that I can remember and that's why I would stick to it.
"If you change it and say we won't have this rule, we won't have any rules at all, then spelling, which is already terribly confusing, becomes more so."
Judy Parkinson, author of the best-selling book I Before E (Except After C), told the Daily Telegraph it was a phrase that struck a chord.
"There are words that it doesn't fit, but I think teachers could always get a discussion going about the 'i before e' rule and the peculiarities of the English language, and have fun with it. That's the best way to learn."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Several years ago, when I was looking for new employees, most of the young architectural graduates that applied for the positions displayed poor spelling and grammar. But, their penmanship was really horrible. In school, we were taught to write in block letters on drawing sheets; however, now that most use CAD, that ability has sadly disappeared.
Lately, I have been tutoring immigrants in English as Second Language (ESL) courses. Young Asians (Cambodian, Thai, Chinese, Korean), whose languages don’t use the Roman alphabet, seem to really concentrate in turning in exercises exhibiting good spelling and penmanship, if somewhat tortured grammar.
Receive or Recieve. Makes no difference. Both mean a ‘kind of tobacco’!
Right???
Hah, they’re wrong... Anyone of any education at all knows that e always comes before i; in fact, you always place the magnitude value before the vector, so whether it is ei, or 7i, or any other imaginary value, i always comes second.
What the speed of light, c, has to do with any of this I haven’t a clue!
The obvious solution: Let children spell words any way they please.
Not to mention plenty of examples of words containing “cie”. e.g. ancient, efficient. A more complex version of the rule adds “except when the “c” is pronounced “sh” (and pronunciation of these words varies regionally), but that still doesn’t pick up words containing “cie” where the “i” has the long vowel sound (e.g. “society”, “science”), as well as all the plurals of words ending in “cy” (e.g. “policies” — and virtually all such words were originally spelled “cie” in the singular). And it’s also fairly common to see names ending in “cie” — some are of non-English origin, but as a diminutive ending for female names (often, but not always an alternate to “cy” spelling), it’s perfectly English, as is the name of the official NYC Mayor’s residence “Gracie Mansion”, which is named after a Scotsman surnamed Gracie. Think how idiotically wrong it would look if you saw “Gracei”, and no one would be sure how to pronounce it.
Christie as well.
cherche les bucks ... sounds like someone has a book series to sell.
Weird.
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