A delightful one - it's a particular eccentricity of our written language that I love* - but a catastrophe nonetheless.
* In part because it drives spelling reform cranks nuts but mainly because our written words represent a visual, forensic history of how language changes.
probly from regnum or similar word
Posted by: paul | June 13, 2007 at 10:56 AM
Reign comes from regnum and rein comes from retinere, meaning to retain.
Posted by: gail | June 13, 2007 at 11:52 AM
But I was wondering about the spelling rule.
Posted by: gail | June 13, 2007 at 11:53 AM
The exception is the rule in English.:)
Posted by: CraigC | June 13, 2007 at 11:58 AM
These words came into the English language long before some genius thought up the wholly arbitrary spelling convention "i before e except after c".
The "ei" was simply an attempt to represent the sound "ay" in written fom.
Posted by: JJM | June 13, 2007 at 12:26 PM
Don't forget:
weigh/weight
freight
sleigh
and so forth.
Posted by: JJM | June 13, 2007 at 12:30 PM
Actually, there's more to the spelling rule, which people often forget. I'm waiting to see if anyone knows the rest of the mnemonic.
Posted by: gail | June 13, 2007 at 12:30 PM
When the i and the e are together in a word and are pronounced like Long A, the e must come before the i.
seize, weird, neither, either, foreign, sovereign, forfeit, counterfeit, leisure, heifer, protein, geiger (as in 'counter'), height, sleight, feisty, seismograph, poltergeist, kaleidoscope
Posted by: iamnot | June 13, 2007 at 12:37 PM
Show offs!!!! :-)
Posted by: Jenny | June 13, 2007 at 12:57 PM
English spelling is a catastrophe.
A delightful one - it's a particular eccentricity of our written language that I love* - but a catastrophe nonetheless.
* In part because it drives spelling reform cranks nuts but mainly because our written words represent a visual, forensic history of how language changes.
Posted by: JJM | June 13, 2007 at 02:01 PM