Hi, James!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  Many linguists have a similar learning style....  :-)

JB>  Please tell me you're pulling my leg.


          No... but I'm trying to avoid resorting to
"psychobabble".  Would it help if I mentioned that Albert
Einstein, who was thought to be a dunce in his youth, probably did too? 
It's important to distinguish between making "rules" about what
"should" happen with observing & reporting on what does
happen.  In this case I made a list, verified the spellings, and found some
more examples. Only then did I consult Fowler, who'd collected even more
examples & organized them neatly into categories.  I'm not just copying
what some expert said.  I'm telling you that Fowler's analysis is
consistent with my own research....  :-)



JB>  I guess it was the "I before E except after C." that
JB>  took me a while to put into practise. Once there,
JB>  they started adding to the rules where I turned
JB>  frustrated.


          Uh-huh.  Looking at the situation from the other side of the
desk... that's where I often felt frustrated as a teacher too!  I'd have
kids in grade eight who figured they knew everything worth knowing about
spelling & grammar, because Miss Rule or their Dad or somebody else
they worshipped when they were in grade three had explained it *this* way. 
I didn't see much alternative but to say "Now that you're big boys
& girls, you're ready to add to the concept." What they'd been
told may have worked fairly well as long as the material they were using
had a controlled vocabulary.  It doesn't work at secondary level...
therefore I had to find a patch which wouldn't offend anybody's
sensibilities.



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


          Language changes over time, and what's appropriate in one
particular style may not be in another... but I could say the same about
music!  I've met plenty of musical snobs.  I didn't even realize I was
interested in music when the only contacts I had were with folks like my
father... for whom it was just another form of noise... or with those who
made disparaging comments about the error the French horn player made in
the second bar of the third movement just to prove they were aware of such
things where the peasantry (like me) weren't. What aroused my interest was
the piano version of PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION... it was unlike anything
I'd heard before.  Later, when I had learned more about music history, I
understood that it was written during a time when the Russian composers
didn't really understand European conventions.  Okay... it's program music.
 But Moussorgsky spoke to me, maybe because he was unconventional.  :-)



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


          Yes, you've got the drift!  Now... I regard this as a
generalization about a language which has grown like Topsy.  If there are
some irregularities which as yet remain unaccounted for, please don't shoot
the messenger....  ;-)

BTW...

          I think we're on more or less the same wave length as far as
"rules" are concerned.  You probably haven't seen my diatribe
about the sign at Nora's school saying "NO PICKUP OR DROPOFF OF
STUDENTS IN THIS AREA".  The sign is in the area where the school
buses pick up & drop off handicapped students... and when we
complained, we were told everybody knows that's okay.  The taxi driver who
refused to drop Nora off there five years ago, because he assumed the sign
meant what it said, obviously didn't know.  But nothing has changed...
(sigh).



JB>  She was recalling some irony or another from Romeo +
JB>  Juliet, when I felt the need to grass-roots things
JB>  with, "Like in [local] wrestling when the referee
JB>  doesn't know someone's cheating?" Did I mention I've
JB>  always been a bit of a brat?


          Did I mention that humour is a great teaching tool?  I had some
kids in learning assistance once who said "axed" in place of
"asked".  No doubt the purists would insist I was wrong to
interfere with their dialect, but I made a comparison using "Lizzy
Borden took an axe" to show them the difference.  They found this
doggerel so amusing they recited it to everybody who would listen & it
wasn't necessary for me to say anything further about "asked"...
[chuckle].




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+