Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 July 8

= July 8 =

I before e except after c
Every rule has some exceptions, but they usually represent a small minority of cases. I have read that only 44 words conform to the 'i before e' rule, while there are 923 words that do not. Is this true? If so, why weren't the 44 made the exceptions rather than the 923? Is it because the 44 words are more commonly encountered than the 923? 112.141.225.154 (talk) 07:34, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Where is your source for the figures you quote? If it's just a count of those letter pairs, it may be strongly influenced by words like "abilities" where the "rule" does not apply.--Phil Holmes (talk) 07:49, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Did you mean words like "fancies" (inflected forms of words ending on "-cy")? --Lambiam 08:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I suggest you read our article on I before E except after C.--Shantavira|feed me 07:52, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * (ec) There are various versions of the I before E except after C rule that aim to exclude large classes of predictable exceptions. Category:English words not following the I before E except after C rule on Wiktionary contains 7,331 members, from atheist to zootheist. Unfortunately, no distinction is made between *cie* and *[not-c]ei*. The claim that there are only 44 words conforming to the rule cannot be right. Just for words of length up to five letters we have: . --Lambiam 08:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Plus . --Lambiam 08:19, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Maybe simply learn the "full form" of the mnemonic: "I before e, except after c Or when sounded as 'a' as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh' Unless the 'c' is part of a 'sh' sound as in 'glacier' Or it appears in comparatives and superlatives like 'fancier' And also except when the vowels are sounded as 'e' as in 'seize' Or 'i' as in 'height' Or also in '-ing' inflections ending in '-e' as in 'cueing' Or in compound words as in 'albeit' Or occasionally in technical words with strong etymological links to their parent languages as in 'cuneiform' Or in other numerous and random exceptions such as 'science', 'forfeit', and 'weird'." --Shantavira|feed me 08:27, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Apparently the "only 44" claim comes from a social media meme . This was picked-up by this edition of QI.
 * However, the assertion is that only 44 words conform to the "except after c" part of the rule, rather than the "i before e" rule itself that Lambiam has counted above. The 923 words that have "i before e" following "c" would seem to include an awful lot of foreign loan-words; "hacienda" was quoted by Stephen Fry and I think it's debatable whether you can apply English spelling rules to words taken directly from other languages. Alansplodge (talk) 11:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * This article cites research by a student at Warwick University who attempted to prove the claims made on QI:
 * He found that, out of the hundreds of thousands of words he studied, “i” did indeed come before “e” roughly 75% of the time... “Except after C” is where everything falls apart. Comparing his list for words containing “cie” and “cei,” Cunningham found that, once again, “i” came before “e” nearly 75% of the time—even after “c”...
 * He found that a more reliable rule would be “I before E, except after W.” Numbering just shy of 200 words, uses of “wei” (mostly from variations on weight, weightiest, aweigh, etc.) were 70% likelier to appear than “wie” (in words like dewiest and chewiest). No other letter, save for words that begin with “ei” like either and eighty, held to the rule with such significant frequency. Alansplodge (talk) 11:36, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Didn't know about "w", but I was always taught (many several years ago) that it's "i before e, except after c and the e and the i sound like ee". Whatever, it's worth remembering the ditty is a mnemonic to (sometimes) help spell, not a rule in itself. Bazza (talk) 12:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * According to this, the 44 and 923 numbers originally came from The Elements of Eloquence (2013) by Mark Forsyth. Alansplodge (talk) 12:19, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

using the word or and comma terms.
example: Much like Looney Tunes: Back in Action, it tends to focus a bit more on the lead human character, or all of them in fact, rather than the main focus who is Tom and Jerry themselves. why they use or after the comma? i don't think so. link: https://awfulmovies.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Tom_%26_Jerry_(2021)&curid=28336&diff=141891&oldid=141841 it tends to focus all of them in fact, rather than the main focus who is tom and jerry themselves. means It tends to focus a bit more all of them in fact. is that true?125.166.155.105 (talk) 08:34, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * It's poorly expressed, but the comma is necessary because "or all of them in fact" is a parenthetical phrase. See Parenthetical comma.--Shantavira|feed me 13:14, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Rephrasing the sentence: "Much like Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the film does not focus mainly on Tom and Jerry themselves; rather, it tends to focus a bit more on the human characters." --Lambiam 13:31, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Stinks to high heaven
What is the origin of this idiomatic English phrase? How many levels of heavenly stinkage are there? Can we reasonably expect that cloud nine will be relatively unstinky? I do hope someone can sniff out an answer. Thank you. 86.187.233.245 (talk) 18:55, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * In the idiom, the high heaven is not inherently smelly, but an earthly stench is so pungent that its zone of smelliness reaches upwards towards the high heaven. AnonMoos (talk) 21:01, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
 * As to "high heaven", in Newspapers.com (pay site, not comprehensive) the earliest reference I'm seeing is in 1733. The first occurrence of "stinks" or "stinking" to high heaven, I'm seeing in 1873. And the casual way it's used suggests the expression is not new. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:11, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I've always found Number 9 Dream relatively odour free, if that's any help. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:28, 9 July 2021 (UTC) p.s. but careful, you don't singe your hair


 * In Hamlet, Shakespeare has King Claudius saying: "O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon it".  (talk) 11:01, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Well yeah, there was also that Danish thing, wasn't there. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:12, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * There's no such page at Wikipedia. Did you possibly mean to link to Wiktionary? If so, use the wikt: prefix: wikt:something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Oh, and please note the links to Wiktionary, unlike to Wikipedia, are case-sensitive on the first letter too. --CiaPan (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I did mean to. How did you guess? Thanks for the advice, CiaPan! Martinevans123 (talk) 08:52, 10 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Well, I just ...guessed.  Phrases like that, common sayings, proverbs etc. are more often described at Wikt than at 'pedia, so this was quite an obvious first guess to me once I found out the link leads astray. --CiaPan (talk) 13:22, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

French pronunciation
I'm trying to learn some French - enough to read Jules Verne and to get by when travelling. I'm using Mondly, which is fun, but, by now, seems to be a bit shallow (and it does have a small number of errors, or at least unfortunate translations, I think). Anyways, one feature of Mondly is that it tries to recognise spoken language (and overall it seems to be decent at it). Sometimes it misunderstands me - fair enough, I probably have a horrible accent. But then there are several word combinations where, to my ear, two different words sound totally identical in French - often the singular and the plural of the word. I just found the pair "restaurant"/"restaurants". Can a native French speaker distinguish these spoken words without context? I also find "Je" (as in "I") very hard to distinguish from "J'ai". And there are certainly more such pairs... ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:05, 8 July 2021 (UTC)


 * There is no audible difference between the singular and plural of most nouns and adjectives; they are distinguished by their articles. But je /ʒə/ and j'ai /ʒɛ/ should be clearly distinct. —Tamfang (talk) 04:08, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that is helpful! And yes, if I use DeepL to pronounce both "Je' and "J'ai" for me, I can clearly distinguish them. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 05:16, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * while je and j'ai are fairly easy to distinguish for an English speakers, some similar vowel sounds in French are not so easy. Try listening carefully to the pronunciation of geai (/ʒɛ/; a jay) compared to j'ai (/ʒe/). Mathglot (talk) 16:37, 10 July 2021 (UTC)