Comments: diaryofasomethingl (at) mikeshecket.com [take that!]
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Diary of a 1L
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
12:19 PM
Hey Mike, Say Something About..."WhatEver!"
Got it. Here you go:
Was anyone else ever taught that the words "weather" and "whether" were supposed to be pronounced differently? I have a memory, long faded by time, of being told by an elementary school teacher that when you say a word that starts with "wh" like "whatever", you should blow a little puff of air when you "wh". I hadn't thought about this in a very long time, and I certainly have never spoken this way. Strangely enough, Merriam-Webster actually confirms multiple pronunciations for the word in question, including the whispery, wheird and whacky "wh"!
Comments:
Speaking of other useless grammar rules that you learned in elementary school:
Did you ever learn "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking"? That explains why, for example, you pronounce the 'e' sound in the word 'each' (but not the 'a' sound). But it doesn't explain why you don't say the word 'pronounce' with a short 'o', like 'prononce' instead of 'pronownce'. Ehh.
And then, this "i before e except after c" crap. Whatever!! 'Receive'... okay. 'Lien'... okay. 'Reign'... DOH!!
Did you ever learn "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking"? That explains why, for example, you pronounce the 'e' sound in the word 'each' (but not the 'a' sound). But it doesn't explain why you don't say the word 'pronounce' with a short 'o', like 'prononce' instead of 'pronownce'. Ehh.
And then, this "i before e except after c" crap. Whatever!! 'Receive'... okay. 'Lien'... okay. 'Reign'... DOH!!
You know what you could do? Having mentioned Meriam-Webster... write your own Shecket-Webster Dictionary! That would be a lot of fun! The name "Webster" is in the public domain, so you could make your own dictionary with a twist. Not only would you have fun with it, but you could also accomplish your life goal of writing a book at the same time.
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