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I before E except after C

I'm a geek. I fully, openly admit that I edit menus in restaurants. I scour the New York Times for grammar errors. Can't stand it when people spell your when they really mean you're (I know, Brianne, we share this weirdness).

I'm a darn good speller. Others I know or have come across are not. Painfully bad. Illiterate comes to mind. It seems that even spellcheck hasn't stopped all of the phonetic faux pas and syllable slaughtering. YourDictionary.com has a list of the 100 most misspelled words in the English language.

There are some words I can understand would be easy to goof:

conscientious -- not sure how sci became "she"
embarrass -- too many "r"s, one would think; any word's fun when it has ASS in it
supersede -- where's the C in SEDE?
millennium -- double consonants again? ick
liaison -- that sneaky second "i"
bellwether -- I've got a secret for how to get this one right. Don't USE this word.

But there are others that are just embarrassing (note...two "r"s, two "s"s)

library -- God help the person who spells it "liberry"
rhyme -- who gets this wrong? maybe a kindergartener. please.
restaurant -- I've seen a sign in front of an eating establishment saying "restraunt" which is scary. I hope they cook better than they spell
intelligence -- why am I not surprised.

Yes, in addition to being a geek, I'm also a spelling snob. I know it probably doesn't indicate one's level of intelligence. There are some people who can't, and some people who can.

And its definately easey to tell the diffrence.

Comments

FletcherDodge said…
That reminds me of a kwote by Thomas Jefferson:

"I have nothing but contempt for anyone who can spell a word only one way."
2:01 PM
Amy said…
And now that I've posted this spelling rant, I'm sure someone out there with too much time on his or her hands will spellcheck my entire blog.
3:13 PM
Brianne said…
haha You pass the spell check! Except of course for your obvious tongue-in-cheek final line.

As to the restaurant with the "restraunt" sign - what kind of cuisine was it? 'Cause you know, the owners could speak a variety of "Engrish" (see www.engrish.com. :)
12:18 PM
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