Why we speak a different language from the Brits
By BILL DUNCAN Saturday, Americans celebrate independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776. If what I read is true, I can foresee another revolution in the making, if the Brits have their way. We are supposed to speak the same language, but frankly we have never agreed on that subject, particularly on spelling. Recently a press bulletin came out of London saying the British government was scrapping a spelling mantra that generations of schoolchildren have learned — "i before e, except after c." In a new British government education advisory, teachers are told not to pass on the rule to students, because there are too many exceptions. The "Support For Spelling" document, which is being sent to thousands of primary schools, says the rule "is not worth teaching" because it doesn’t account for words like “veil and their.” Jack Bovill of the British Spelling Society, which advocates simplified spelling, said he agreed with the decision. However, not all Brits are in agreement. Supporters say the ditty has value because it is one of the few language rules that most people remember. Next thing you know, someone will destroy my calendar memory, by saying that the old memory cue, “Thirty days hath September, April, June and November…” because it doesn’t take into account Leap Years. The memory is a funny business. The new generation relies on google to keep all that stuff, but us oldsters rely on what is called mnemonics – simple memory jogglers that once learned make permanent imprints on the brain. Memory devices began in ancient Greece, long before the written word. and developed into a technique called “Method of Loci.” The method, according to Cicero in his “De Oratore,” was invented by a Greek poet named Simonides. Simonides was at a dinner party when he was called outside just before the roof of the building caved in killing all those inside. The collapse was such that it left some of the victims smashed beyond recognition Simonides was able to identify the victims by their positions at the dinner table. It was through this tragedy that mnemonics was born. It led to hundreds of memory devices such as the simple grammar rule, “i before e except after c.” In 2008, Judy Parkinson, compiled an entire book of these memory devices and titled it, “i before e (except after c).” I was not a music student, so I never heard “Every Good Boy Does Fine,” a memory device to remember the notes on treble clef?” There are all kinds of math tricks for those dreaded times tables we had to memorize like “8 x 8 fell on the floor, when I picked it up it was 64” or “4 x 4 it would seem, long ago was sweet 16.” The other night , a contestant on Millionaire had to help Meredith Vieira pronounce Pythagoras’ Theorem that I learned in high school by memorizing a ditty about an Indian Chief ad three squaws in three teepees. Of course, like Meredith, I might have stumbled over the pronoucement. In her introduction, Parkinson says that “mnemonics could even save a person from contacting poison ivy or poison oak by remembering this ditty: “If it has leaves of three, leave it be.” The Brits have a different school system than we do here in the colonies, but in my elementary school days I remember being given the sentence. “Receive a piece of pie” and told to correct it by using the old memory aide “i before e, except after c,” and discovering there were exceptions to the rule just to make life difficult. The English language is full of convolutions and contradictions which certainly doesn’t make spelling and pronunciation any easier, no matter on which side of the pond you live. (Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470)
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