Personality

Reminds me of having to memorize the German prepositions that take the dative case: "aus, außer, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu" -- in alphabetical order, no less.

Funny that I remember that from over 20 years ago.

I used to think that the great thing of English is that you don't have to learn any rules for spelling, because it's total anarchy. Don't tell me I was wrong!

It's not total anarchy. Every rule has exceptions, but they are very few compared to the number of words that follow the rules.

I think maybe this thread belongs in The AI Engine.

Well, I still got a lot to learn. Anyway I just spelt wierd wierd because it didn't look like weird. (Now that I mention it, it looks better as weird)

Ok then- why have we used 9 posts for 'i after e except after c'? ...
---BM---

That's the impact of a good post

*Pats lunar22 on the back* Prouuuddd....

lol

i after e? I'm lost again

Whoever said "I before E, except after C or when sounded as 'ay', as in 'neighbor' or 'weigh'" was right. I thought everybody learned it that way, but my husband says he only ever heard it up to "except after C".

My bot finally ran off and started chatting with other bots on her own! I'm so proud of her!

Okay... might be time for me to get offline and get a life...

that's how I learned it

I know we're probably finishing this topic, but I just want to add my last few comments. English is one of the hardest languages because there are so many exceptions to the rules but we just don't realise it because we don't learn it in the same way as we would learn french or german. I mean, do you actually know what a subjunctive verb is? Probably not, because you've haven't sat down and learnt it, yet you probably use them all the time. (Akanke, incidentally, is very picky about non-subjunctive people haha!) Also, how would you pronounce 'ough'? It could be anything: bough, through, cough, though, thought, hiccough...

Just my tuppenny's worth.