A collection of odd and (I hope) amusing facts, which may help to fill a gap in the conversation.
Page editor: N Paterson. Contact by email or form.
When Adam met Eve for the first time, he said Madam, I'm Adam. This is a palindrome — a phrase or sentence in which the letters, words or even lines read the same in either direction. Adam hoped to impress the most beautiful woman in the world, but she more than matched him by replying simply, Eve. Not bad given that writing, and therefore palindromes, and English ones in particular, had not yet been invented!
More palindromes, and a wonderful palindromic poem.
Who has not heard of the rule i before e, except after c. A University of Warwick statistician put it to the test. He plugged a list of 350,000 English words into a statistical program to see if the math checked out. It didn't.
A rule that either is so complex that no-one can remember it, or which has a long list of words that are exceptions, is not of any practical use. A more complete and correct version of this rule was prepared by Merriam Webster:
I before e, except after c
Or when sounded as 'a' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'
Unless the 'c' is part of a 'sh' sound as in 'glacier'
Or it appears in comparatives and superlatives like 'fancier'
And also except when the vowels are sounded as 'e' as in 'seize'
Or 'i' as in 'height'
Or also in '-ing' inflections ending in '-e' as in 'cueing'
Or in compound words as in 'albeit'
Or occasionally in technical words with strong etymological links to their parent languages as in 'cuneiform'
Or in other numerous and random exceptions such as 'science', 'forfeit', and 'weird'.
One of the favourite arguments in favour of keeping English spelling unchanged is that it shows the etymology of words. When pressed, most people can only come up with the silent b in debt showing a link to the Latin debitum, which shows that most people don't really care about etymology until spelling reform is mentioned.
Apart from that, the supposed etymology is sometimes wrong. For example, the silent s in island shows the link to the Latin insula. But island actually derives from the Old English íglund, not from the Latin at all.
More examples at Mental Floss.
How would you pronounce ghoti? Pronounce it like this:
- gh as in cough
- o as in women
- ti as in nation
and you get ... fish!
This monster is usually attributed to George Bernard Shaw. However, we should give our thanks instead to Charles Ollier who wrote it in 1855 — and showed that English spelling has been ludicrous for quite some time.
Ask your friend what Y-E-S spells. They won't have any difficulty saying yes. Then ask what E-Y-E-S spells. It's easy when it's written down, but surprisingly difficult when it's spoken.
See a YouTube video of this.
