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Q&A: Did you ever notice that “weird” doesn’t apply to the “i before e” rule?
Question by ¾ pErFeCt™: Did you ever notice that “weird” doesn’t apply to the “i before e” rule?
I didn’t until today…haha
Best answer:
Answer by oliveirasgirl2000
omg! I didnt ever notice that, this english language is all screwed up huh?
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well no offence but DUH!!!! lol
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LikeDislikethere are a lot of words that don’t follow that rule. In fact, I think it’s one of the most useless spelling rules…
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LikeDislikeYes, odd isn’t? You’ll probably enjoy this too. One of my college professors many years ago showed me this one.
Have you ever seen this word? GHOTI
Here are some clues to figure it out:
Pronounce the gh as in tough, the o as in women and the ti as in nation.
Blend these sounds and you get fish.
This joke was made by George Bernard Shaw to prove a point. English spelling is confusing.
Actually, English spelling does follow specific rules; therefore, ghoti cannot be pronounced as fish because gh never represents the sound of f at the beginning of an English word and ti never represents the sound of sh at the end of an English word.
Knowing some basic rules of English spelling can eliminate many common errors even though there are usually exceptions.
Basic Rules
Remember this poem to decide if a word should be spelled ie or ei.
Put i before e
Except after c
Or when it sounds like a
As in neighbor or neigh.
Examples for line 1:
mischief
believe
field
Examples for line 2:
receiver
conceited
Examples for line 3:
eight
weigh
freight
Some Exceptions:
friend
neither
leisure
foreign
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LikeDislikethat’s weird
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LikeDislikeSCIENCE isn’t either
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LikeDislikeYah isn’t it weird?
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LikeDislikethere are some exceptions to the rule
“i before e except after c”
weird just has to be on of them.
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LikeDislikeNo, I hadn’t noticed before now. That’s because it’s not so much the “i before e” rule as “i before e, except after c…and several other seemingly random consonants.” “Protein” is another one of those words that doesn’t put i before e. There are several others that I use fairly often, but none of them are springing to mind right now. The English language (or at least English grammar) is often difficult for people to learn because many of it’s rules seem arbitrary or contradictory.
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LikeDislikeHave you noticed that English is probably one of the most difficult languages to learn because the rules have many exceptions. Besides having many words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently or the same with different meanings. Or words that sound the same, but are spelled differently, but sound the same. The only good rule about spelling and pronunciation is you have to memorize everything, and non of the rules count all of the time.
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LikeDislikewhoa, ur rite =)
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LikeDislikeThere is actually a commercial for a truck that is all about words that are an exception to this rule. I can’t remember the truck at the moment, but they mention things like rottweiler and some others.
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LikeDislikeHaha! The english language is so confusing! ‘ph’ is ‘f’and ‘c’ is ‘k’ as well as ‘s’!! I don’t get it, but who really does?
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LikeDislikeyes i have, but did you know that the word “wyrd” means the power of free will as it affects the power of personal karma?
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LikeDislikeYeah, my 4th grade teacher taught us to remember that by saying “weird is a weird word”.
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