Did I miss replying to "People... 1D"? I think I deleted a file I shouldn't
have. (Max-Squish misses dupes from OLMR... Yada yada yada....)

Ardith Hinton wrote to James Bradley, "Spelling & Grammar" on
06-06-05 12:40

 AH>  experiment with various interpretations....  ;-)
 JB>  Hey... I wasn't complainin'. 

 AH>           Thankyou.  I didn't think you were....  :-)

Ah... You know me. (Shucks! |-)

 JB>  But doesn't your learning style dissuade you from
 JB>  language studies?

 AH>           Not at all!  Many linguists have a similar learning style....
 AH>  :-)

Please tell me you're pulling my leg.


 AH>           It seems to me they'd probably be very uncomfortable with
 AH> rules which don't necessarily work in practice, as I am.
 AH> Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry when adults
 AH> recite "i before e except after c", then shrug & spell a
 AH> word such as "either" correctly because that is what looks
 AH> correct to them... or say "between you and I" because their
 AH> use of "me" was criticized before they were ready to learn
 AH> much about prepositions & conjunctions.  Some folks like to
 AH> have rules... typically, eight-year-olds & primary teachers
 AH> do... but the rules we learned when we were eight years old
 AH> may be inadequate later on.  And what I find interesting is
 AH> how people actually use language, how they intuitively know
 AH> the structure of their native language even when they can't
 AH> explain it....  :-)

I guess it was the "I before E except after C." that took me a while to put
into practise. Once there, they started adding to the rules where I turned
frustrated. It's like a game of chess, where you learn the hard way that a
castle (Rook?) can make a lateral move *in concert* after it traverses the
board. Well, how many *more* surprises are there?

Maybe that's why I took to math, music, and solitary sports. Even though the
rules get more complicated, they are only built upon the earlier rules, and
don't seem to be ones that change so someone can win, or feel superior and
giggle under their breath.


 AH>           Uh-huh.  I've invented a corollary to the "i/e"
rule which
 AH> takes into account the vast majority of exceptions.  If you'd
 AH> like to know, just ask.  ;-)

ANOTHER ONE?!?  What's the usual, "Unless it sounds like a
cat dying?"

OK, seriously, "I before E, unless after C, or when it sounds like..."


 AH>           Whatever the reason(s), I seem to have a gift for spelling &
 AH> grammar. As a student I often found the prescribed
 AH> exercises repetitive, simple-minded & boring... i.e. until

Me and math... Top 20 percentile through Elementary. My grade Twelve teacher,
we all suspected was an alcoholic. He had a habit of sneaking out during class,
and coming back smelling of Scope mouthwash. He may have snuck out for a smoke,
but he had that mono-tone slur, that put me to sleep ten minutes after he
started flappin' his jaw. Two or three weekly sessions with a tutor, and I
breezed through the course.

 AH> my grade ten English teacher, "Miss Langwidge", aroused my

Ah... Ms. Elizabeth Johnson. She was recalling some irony or another from Romeo
+ Juliet, when I felt the need to grass-roots things with, "Like in [local]
wrestling when the referee doesn't know someone's cheating?" Did I mention I've
always been a bit of a brat? (-|[ The simile needed work, but I cracked up the
whole class for the better part of 60 seconds.


 JB>  Say, could I bother you for an explanation for possessive
 JB>  nouns, and whatever else deserves a trailing "'s" versus

 AH>           Heh.  That's exactly the sort of question I like to get my
 AH> teeth into because it's out of the ordinary... and now you've
 AH> aroused my curiosity!  I see your first name as an
 AH> interesting challenge because it ends with "s".  The only
 AH> examples I could think of were "St. James's Palace" & "St.
 AH> James' Infirmary"... and in both cases I was able to verify

I'm excited about having a palace, and even more flattered I've reached
Sainthood, but to have an infirmary named after me... Apropos, I guess.

 AH> the spelling.  I did a bit more research & concluded that
 AH> the British add "s" after the apostrophe to one-syllable
 AH> names such as "James" & "Charles" where the Americans
 AH> don't.  As a Canadian you're at liberty to use the version
 AH> you prefer, but IMHO your spelling should agree with your
 AH> pronunciation.  Further details/examples with other names,
 AH> such as "Jesus" & "Xerxes", available on
request.  Or you

Plural Xerxes would be Xerxie? 

 AH> can check out Fowler's MODERN ENGLISH USAGE, which I've
 AH> found quite helpful as a guide with various oddities....  :-
 AH> )

I'm just afraid the guide will only confirm my distaste for the language, not
increase my curiosity. For instance, why differentiate between syllable count
on Pronouns, and I've heard some Brits pronounce Charles with two. Why,
properly, should I end the previous sentence by restating
"syllable?" (I know
something about a dangling who cares... ;-) You knew what I meant. Why do I
*have* to place that punctuation mark inside the quotations? Maybe I should
have only used a single quote, but I was fully quoting a previous statement. Ad
infinitum!

With English, I'm afraid I have little patience. When every answered question
poses four more questions, and sixteen exeptions... I've been trying to learn a
bit of Russian. I hear that language is easier to understand. 


... "Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity." -
f/Movie Sneakers
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