*Blogspot audience throws numerous prosthetic ears at computer screen*
A terrible, terrible tragedy has come to my attention in the past 10 minutes. This tragedy is so inconceivable, NAY! So incredulous! That it will send all you money hungry Macquarie dictionary lovers running in the opposite direction! Believe me, after you read of this, you will send glares of annoyance at your Microsoft Word pages when that ever-irksome red spelling-mistake line appears on your screen!
This is 'not' one of my silly little theories, but an actual fact! A fact PROVED by the good people of wikipedia (and that means its GOT to be true, right?)!
For you see, this theory stems behind the notion of grammar songs.
Ever heard of ye ol' tune - 'i before e except after c'?
It is a song that has been hummed throughout many a primary school and has been passed on by teachers around the world who remained ignorant to its flaw. Yes, we were told by many an idle teachers to use it as a rule to life.
Well the song SPEAKS LIES my friends! In our childishness and youth, we were reckless enough to believe it!
Think about it.
*waits*
....Can't be bothered thinking?
WELL FEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS MY FRIENDS!!!
(warning the following may cause shock and perhaps horror in the hearts of those younger than the age of 13. Parental guidance is recommended.)
BEHOLD! THE DREADED WORDS THAT DISPROVE THE SONG OF OUR GRADE ONE HEARTS!!!
beige, conscience, deity, dreidel, eight, either, feign, feisty, foreign, forfeit, height, heinous (tee hee!), heir, heist, neigh, neighbour, neither, prescient, science, seize, society, sovereign, veil, vein, weight, weir, weird
And there are PLENTY more my fellow blogspotarians, I assure you. I just didn't want to overload your computer screens with too much terror...
I don't know what else to say... Except that Noah Webster is probably rolling in his grave right about now *shakes head solemly*
So spread the word!
'i' before 'e' DOES NOT ALWAYS come after c!!!
C SHALL BE LEFT ALONE WITH THE OTHER REJECTED LETTERS!!!!
Signed,
Th_ _n_gma
we should consult mark tredinnick. he shall have the answer to this problem.
ReplyDeletebut isn't there more to the saying "i before e, except after c"
i mean, we all know the shortened version...but i could have sworn there was another bigger one...tredinnick help us!!!
grammer...it gets you every time :(
The rhyme is 'i before e, except after c, and only when the sound is eeeeeeeeee.' That's why.
ReplyDeleteahuh!! told you there was more to that saying! I found this book a couple of days after you posted this and was like "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh tory tory tory tory tory"...but you didn't hear me...obviously heh
ReplyDeletefeat your eyes upon this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Before-Except-After-Old-School-Remember/dp/1843172496
you have ruined my life with this information.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe it took you about 20 years to figure that out...
ReplyDelete