British Teachers Told To Drop the "i Before e" Rule

I like the rule. Yes, there's exceptions, but I know sometimes when I'm writing, I still use it. I know which words the rule doesn't apply to, and eventually they will learn it, too.

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This whole argument is rediculous. I was taught French from age 10, German and English from age 12 and grew up with Dutch. I have never seen worse spelling than by the American public and the attitude is "WHO CARES" We are now about number 27 on the education level of the world and rapidly getting worse. In 20 years we may be unable to read the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. I used to proofread my bosse's letters and he was college educated. Teachers are the ones to blame in my book
since they do not spell too well either. And yes we learned a lot of things by rote. My English teacher used to say that English had a set of rules of 10 short pages and a whole library of exceptions.

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Hey, we have long been in the business of "dumbing down" america - all in the name of "equality". I'm sure the culture sickness that is embedded in our society (the USA) was attacking most other learned cultures. It doesn't surprise me but I am really upset about it. The world is not ours anymore and we (collectively) are allowing it to be "dumbed down". Won't be long. We'll all be pretty equally gutteral in our language as well as our living. Call me disgusted.

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Uly, Uly, Uly...

Of course, “hoi polloi” is esoteric in the sense it is not a vernacular term in our language, not well known, and therefore, not often used in daily conversation (a possible exception being during discussions with your dog). Additionally, the derogatory undertone attached, especially as used, escapes many.

I said, "My question about texting was not particularly important; just a fun comment to throw in." You responded, “If you're going to try making jokes, you should make them funny.”

Uly, there is that reading comprehension problem of yours… I said “fun” not “funny”. Fun can arouse laughter, but not necessarily.

I said, "Your acerbic comments are undiminished by your after-the-fact denials and attempts to shift the blame." Uly responded, “What the hell are you talking about? I have made no denials. I have shifted no blame. I can't even *reply* to you because in several paragraphs of self-righteous whining about your feelings you've failed to say anything that directly addresses anything I've said”

First, I do not whine. I showed my comments to some people I trust for a whine-o-meter reading. Their reaction and others in the history of my comments on this and other blogs never saw whining…. Oddly, you are the first and only one. I suspect you are simply attempting to “shift” again. Nevertheless, here is a specific:

“Once again, rules and language … are being defended by people who don't have the reading comprehension skills to understand that they were never being attacked in the first place.”

Obviously for all of the confusion and disagreement you see, you are blaming the people who, in your opinion, are incapable of understanding what they read; throughout your comments, and not well hidden, is your denial or any “wrong” on your part. Like I said earlier, you may be correct in many of the pure technical aspects of your observations, but your tone reduces the effectiveness of selling your point. This leads me to believe you are less interested in the improvement of English usage, and more interested in the improvement of your opinion of yourself. However, I will say, though I believe there was justification, the denial and shift comment was a little weak: better choice: judgmental and insulting.

In a later comment you said, “I cringe when I hear people say "John and I" when what they really mean *is* "John and me". Funny, a lot of people are so busy hypercorrecting that they don't realize they're making errors.”

Uly, everyone, with minor exceptions, knew what they ‘meant’, did you mean to write, ”…what they really mean to say…”? There intention would be the same with either. So much for “hypercorrecting”, or is it hyper correcting, or hypercorrection?

The phone rings. You pick up. “Uly?” Do you say “It is I.” rather than “It is me.”? Of course not, though ‘I’ is correct… well maybe you would… but us common folk would not, and I suspect it is “us common folk” driving the flow of English.

Another Uly correction: When accusing Venus of wasting a bunch of scarce exclamation points, you chastised, “(Only one exclamation point is needed, by the way. It's like salt. A little goes a long, long way.)”

Uly, redundancies repeatedly occur, but only one ‘long’ was needed!

You said of me, “You referenced the fact that I used the Greek term hoi polloi. Everybody and their dog uses that term, probably because it rhymes. (I agree, it's silly and pretentious, but sometimes you just gotta be as pretentious as you can manage. This is why I never will say "the" hoi polloi. You lose it if you add the extra the.)”

Uly, everyone with a potbellied pig knows “hoi” means “the” in Greek. And, I am impressed by your admission of being silly and pretentious… me too. So why don’t you and I stop this foolishness, and go on stage; you with your esoterically literate, poetic dog, and me and my multi-lingual, hyper-folded pig… we could make some real pretentious money.

Whatever you decide, it has been fun, and at times, even funny.

DaMoKi

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Dawn,

Thanks for pointing our the malfunction in my contextual spell-checker. 1, 2, 3, go forth and multiply. :}

DaMoKi

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Laura,

OK, can't blame this one on the spell checker.... I'll be more careful in the future.

DaMoKi

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It's the worst idea since the "spell it like it sounds" in kindergarten! Our soceity or is it society (hummm i before e except after c) ok society is becoming more and more unable to think for itself. Let's get rid of this in school and that we'll just let them do without because it's too hard to learn. Let's put a law to this because people can't think for themselves they're too stupid too. Soooooo what becomes of a society (there's a c so i have to put i before e) that isn't thinking for itself? Hummm, it gets dumber and dumber. Commercials are even getting dumber and dumber. Now is that because those "thinkers" have gotten dumbed down or because they think we are all too dumb to watch a commercial that really tells about the product? Like the Sudden LInk commercials! Dumbest things I've ever seen. Sure they get to play around to make them "fun" but they've gone past fun to just plain stupid! Guess that right there shows us how dumbed down we've become since we won't take the time to sit down and write to the companies and tell them "Hey we're not stupid!" But then we may have to think about i before e except after c or as in neighbor and weight first! Heaven forbid that happens! Maybe we should write to our governments too to tell them hey we and are children are smarter than you think. Just because we made a mistake in electing you doesn't mean we can't think for ourselves. (Well the majority of us at least!) (Note: I have not claimed to be a perfect speller especially when typing! But I do, on occasion, do OK.)

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Nancy Wrenn,

You made quite a few valid and important points, and I am saddened by your arthritic situation, but if you would type everything in lower case, it would be much more readable.

When texting or bloging, I wanted you to be aware that it is considered impolite to type in all caps... it is called "shouting". Besides, if you really want to 'shout' at someone, you have no way when they are all in caps.

I hope this finds you well and will improve any responses to your comments.

Sincerely,
DaMoKi

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I did find the "i before e..." ditty helpful, though the exceptions can still cause confusion. Spelling isn't a strength many people appear to have, sadly. Spell checker was helpful for awhile, but now with texting, it's not used nearly so often as it should be. Very few people appear to believe teaching "being correct" in spelling, math, or manners is anything other than politically incorrect! My youngest daughter went to an expensive private school, and it was horrifying to realize they wanted her to write creatively, so they didn't correct spelling and grammatical errors in her work!

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I've been working in language all my life. I was brought up speaking both, English and French, and have since studied and speak Italian and Spanish, and have studied German...am working on Russian now. I see nothing wrong with the i before e rule, but it seems like the author thinks that's the only line in the mnemonic. "i before e except after c" works especially with common words like "believe" and "receive" which are CONSTANTLY misspelled. I also BELIEVE if you see a word misspelled long enough, you start to BELIEVE and accept the incorrect spelling. English is a language composed of "foreign", and interesting pronounciations for same letter diphtonogs, and there are no cut and dried rules.

I'm sick of the texting crap. It is having an effect on kids and adults. I've seen many posters on various sites who write "textspeak". It ticks me off bigtime. Since kids in this country aren't required to learn any other language, is it possible that they could have some grasp of their own? Does anyone diagram sentences anymore??? I doubt it. Chances are it's because their teacher has no clue as to what a part of speech is. This country seems to stress, in order of importance, computer science, math, general science. Language arts seem to fall into the abyss.

I do think these "educators" are wrong in trying to get rid of a harmless somewhat helpful tool, such as the "i before e" maxim. Also, Rottweiler is definitely a German word, and if pronounced correctly, the "w" would be pronounced as a "v".

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I think this is just ONE MORE piece of "political correctness" bull crap! The i before e always worked well for me and there is NO REASON to start changing the rules UNLESS as we all know, that there are some people trying to CHANGE every damn thing! It is even becoming more apparent that certain people wish to make tasks "easier" not "better"! These certain people would rather "pull down" the competitiveness in everything and lower "standards" in order for some people to appear to equal the level of others. In schools, it has even become a "view" that there are N O winners - so no one gets their feelings hurt!!!!!!! COME ON!!!!! There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY ANY ONE RIGHT NOW - CAN'T LEARN THE SAME THINGS THAT I HAVE!!!!!! In "1st grade", I wrote my numbers and letters backwards - until my mother changed that. I have had to work harder than others (at times) but I survived my difficulties just fine! I have also published a book of poems. STOP THE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND EVERYONE WILL BE FINE!

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I put myself through college as a writing tutor, I have been a professional editor for 15 years, and I still find the "i before e" rule helpful. Considering that not only is this "controversy" set in Britain, but it's all about a recommendation rather than a regulation, this is a completely pointless argument we're having.

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