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English is weird

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Morituri:
Like the epithet "spider biter" - It's a phrase that, once heard, sticks in my memory.  So it could be a mnemonic, if only there were a way to attach it to something I want to remember? 

(used as a slur/epithet against members of a nonhuman species in a dream.... because my brain goes there, I guess.)

Case:

--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 18 Nov 2020, 14:18 ---
--- Quote from: cesium133 on 16 Nov 2020, 19:16 ---'I' before 'E', except after 'C', unless it sounds like 'A' like in 'neighbor' or 'weigh'.

Or it's weird.

--- End quote ---

Any foreign observer, or anyone named "Keith", if caffeinated enough to become feisty would make you receive notification that this rule is unscientific and bad for society. It's just a weird counterfeit of a rule.

--- End quote ---

I have seen Anglophones make the mistake of swapping 'ie' and 'ei' in their spelling of some words, and always wondered why that is an issue? Now I learn there's even a mnemonic for it?


(In my first language, 'ie' and 'ei' are two very different sounds - not to mention that the German 'i' sounds roughly like the English 'e'. On top of that, the German 'ie' sounds (roughly) like the 'ei' in 'Keith', whereas the German 'ei' more closely resembles the 'ei' in 'feisty'. Guess my brain just gave up on trying to work of off similarities and learned each of the English phonemes separately)

hedgie:
Trying to actually understand the English language is like reading from the Necronomicon.

pwhodges:
Distinct pronunciations of ei and ie in English (as I pronounce it):

ei: ceiling, height, eight, leisure, heir.
ie: believe, die, friend, sieve, quiet, soldier, view.

Note the first two can be spelt either way (in the right places!)

cybersmurf:
I guess someone has to go there (again?): The Chaos. Yes, that poem about pronunciation. But this site has the whole thing with audio files, so you can hear what it is correctly.

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