Grammar Made Easy ...

© Marta Stephens 2009 all rights reserved

... but I haven't seen pigs fly yet!

My daily morning routine is to turn on the news in the morning while I’m getting ready to go to work. Yesterday was no exception. The commentators served up some more of the same stuff we’ve been hearing about for months; the hike in crime, rise in costs, more failed industries, and the steady increased percentage of unemployment. News about our economy came while I dried my hair, I put on my make-up to word from Iran, and I slipped on my clothes while I listened to the latest celebrity gossip.

If life isn’t frustrating enough, what I heard next made me sit up, take notice, and gnash my teeth.

New British guidelines are telling teachers that the standard grammar rule, i before e except after c is too confusing and because the rule isn’t consistently used, citing examples such as sufficient, veil and their. Hence, that rule should no longer be taught. Don't believe me? Here’s a link to one of the articles from CBS News.

Come on, now. Who are we kidding? The English language is full of inconsistencies. Let’s not stop with poor little i and e. How about if we make a few other spellings more consistent while we're at it?

Let’s start with that “shun” sound. Why is the word operation written with a "tion", circumcision with a "sion", and suspicion written with "cion"? Wouldn’t it be easier to remember these spelling if we could write, operashun, circumcishun, and suspishun? Add to this words that have the same “shun” sound but end in "cian" like beautician. I mean, if you read the following sentence, you’d know what it meant, right?

“Sweatheart, I’m going to see my beautishun. I just pulled my hair out and can't do a thing with it!”

Which brings me to words like phone, phantom, philosophy, and phenomenon. What’s that all about? Just drop the ph and spell them with an f for crying out loud! Oh, now there's another example, why is out loud two words, but outlook one? Hmmm?

Okay, we’re making some progress. Let’s move on to homonyms (words that sound alike but have different meanings like air (what we breathe), e’er (contraction of “ever”), ere (eventually), err (a mistake), and heir (one who will inherit). Still with me? Good, for more homonyms check out: http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html

Synonyms are different words with similar meanings, here's proof: http://www.synonyms.net/. For example, a synonym for the word train is locomotive, engine, or depending on your age, choo-choo. However, if you’re in a new job, someone will surely train or teach, coach, educate, instruct, guide, prepare or tutor you on the proper procedures of your new position.

Antonyms are the easiest to remember because they are simply words opposite in meaning to other words, such as fast is an antonym of slow, and complicated is the opposite of easy.

But if the Brits are really concerned about easing up on the confusion of the English language, I say do something about, effect/affect and advice/advise! No matter how often I use them, I always have to look them up.

Now I ask you, is it any wonder the English language is the hardest to learn? I don't know about you, but I feel just a little smarter this morning because most of the rule are nicely tucked in the back of my head, especially i before e except after c which has been one of the easiest to remember. Maybe if someone could come up with a cute rhyme for me to remember when to use the words lie, lay, laid and lain, I wouldn't need to fone my beautishun as often which would help me save money on gas and wear/where/ware on my car/auto/vehicle.

And my final word on the subject is, life is grand if you don't weaken! ;)