[OT] English spelling [was RE: Taking apart a Brikon 723 floppy drive analyzer]

[Rich Alderson]

> From: Doug Jackson
> Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 3:05 PM

> My wonderful, patient wife is an English teacher, and an easy way to
> rev her up is to remind her that English is a living language, subject
> to constant change, and that the only language that has truly static
> spelling is Latin!  Remember - "I before E, unless after C (and then
> only sometimes)"

Not even Latin spelling is entirely static--ecclesiastical Latin
spellings often differ from the classical language.

And it's

        i before e except after c,
         if the sound of the word is 'long e'

which, as someone with multiple degrees in linguistics, irritates me a
bit (there being no such thing as "long" vowels in modern English--it's
a holdover from Graeco-Latin grammars).


Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104

mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell

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