Quote:
Originally Posted by Grahm
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If that seems contrived, try flipping the problem around. Look at an actual word, something like "scissors." Based on the way most people pronounce it, "scissors" has about 80 million valid spellings -- of which "scissors" is the most ridiculous.
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How is 'scissors' the most ridiculous? A silent 'c' in 'sci' is quite common, as in 'science', and the rest is pretty much phonetic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grahm
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You see, for every rule or guideline we have for how words are spelled or pronounced -- "'I' before 'E'" -- there are exceptions -- "except after 'C'" -- and exceptions to those exceptions -- "except in cases like 'weighing' your 'neighbor'." The rules can't be relied on at all, really, and spelling accurately becomes mostly a matter of experience, or more commonly, right-clicking red squiggly lines. When trying to spell a word, unless you've written it regularly and/or recently, you're shit out of luck without a dictionary. Even with one, you can get tripped up by homophones, real words that sound identical but mean different things -- see my "elicit"/"illicit" confusion.
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The actual rule for 'ie' is, "If I and E together make the sound 'ee', then I before E except after C. Unfortunately lots of English teachers skip the first part.
Yeah, English vocabulary is tricky with so many words, but somehow people still manage to get 'their' and 'they're' mixed up despite this being obvious and very easy.