I Before E, Except After C Rule Left to D-I-E

Posted by Alex in Book & Lit on June 20, 2009 at 3:22 pm

Is nothing sacred anymore? After decades of having the rule (it was even made into a Charlie Brown song), the British government is ditching it:

Advice sent to teachers says there are too few words which follow the rule and recommends using more modern methods to teach spelling to schoolchildren.

The document, entitled Support for Spelling, is being distributed to more than 13,000 primary schools. [...]

It says: "The i before e rule is not worth teaching. It applies only to words in which the ie or ei stands for a clear ee sound. Unless this is known, words such as sufficient and veil look like exceptions.

"There are so few words where the ei spelling for the ee sounds follows the letter c that it is easier to learn the specific words." These include receive, ceiling, perceive and deceit.

The document recommends other ways to teach pupils spelling, like studying television listings for compound words, changing the tense of a poem to practise irregular verbs and learning about homophones through jokes such as "How many socks in a pair? None — because you eat a pear."

Link

 
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Spellbound

Posted by Miss Cellania in Everything Else on April 8, 2009 at 11:32 am


Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss challenges you to remember the unusual way some celebrities spell their names. It’s the first of a series of quizzes, today featuring female TV stars.

In this edition of Spellbound, you’ll have to key in the first names of each female TV star mentioned. Capital letters don’t matter, but spelling does – so be careful. And good luck!

I only scored 40% because I are a bad spellar. Link

 
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Yo Comments Are Whack!

Posted by Miss Cellania in Video Clips on January 22, 2009 at 11:20 am


(YouTube link)

Alexandra and Lizz encourage YouTube commenters to learn proper grammar and spelling, and scale back on the hate talk. -via Everlasting Blort

 
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Numb Nut?

Posted by Algonkin in Video Clips on June 4, 2008 at 6:53 am

This got me laughing. Here is Sameer Mishra who won the Scripps 2008 National Spelling Bee. These kids get tough words but this word stumped Sameer … at least for a short moment.

Link: YouTube

 
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