ieieceiiecei
Kevin Stone
I've been asked:
ieieceiiecei
Any ideas?
I'm not the author of this puzzle.
--
Kev
swp
i c u r yy 4 me
swp
dgates
<newsa...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I've been asked:
>
> ieieceiiecei
>
>Any ideas?
>
>I'm not the author of this puzzle.
Maybe something simple like "crushed ice?"
However, that doesn't really explain why the letter distribution: 5
e's, 5 i's, but only 2 c's.
Ted Schuerzinger
I before E, except after C. (I'm surprised nobody answered this before
now.)
--
Ted S.
fedya at hughes dot net
Now blogging at http://justacineast.blogspot.com
Mensanator
> On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:48:20 -0700, dgates wrote:
> > On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:24:10 +0100, "Kevin Stone"
> > <newsacco...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>
> >>Hi,
>
> >>I've been asked:
>
> >> �ieieceiiecei
>
> >>Any ideas?
>
> >>I'm not the author of this puzzle.
>
> > Maybe something simple like "crushed ice?"
>
> > However, that doesn't really explain why the letter distribution: 5
> > e's, 5 i's, but only 2 c's.
>
> I before E, except after C. �(I'm surprised nobody answered this before
> now.)
I'm not. Could you explain it letter by letter
for those of us who are too thick?
Mark Brader
>> I before E, except after C. (I'm surprised nobody answered this before
>> now.)
Oh, of course!
> I'm not. Could you explain it letter by letter
> for those of us who are too thick?
Break it up: ie-ie-c-ei-ie-c-ei.
Where are the pairs that don't have I before E?
--
Mark Brader /"\ ASCII RIBBON CAMPAIGN
m...@vex.net \ / AGAINST HTML MAIL
Toronto X AND NEWS
/ \
Mensanator
> >>>> ieieceiiecei
> >> I before E, except after C. (I'm surprised nobody answered this before
> >> now.)
>
> Oh, of course!
>
> > I'm not. Could you explain it letter by letter
> > for those of us who are too thick?
>
> Break it up: ie-ie-c-ei-ie-c-ei.
> Where are the pairs that don't have I before E?
Oh, I thought he was deriving the actual phrase
"i before e except after c" from the letters (for
example, "except" has an e after a c. I guess my
mind is too highly trained.
John Jones
"Ted Schuerzinger" <fe...@hughes.spam> wrote in message
news:1kf9kter...@justacineast.motzarella.org...
FWIW the UK spelling czar has just pronounced that this rule
will no longer be taught in UK (or possibly just English) schools
since there are too many exceptions.
In fact google reveals many including heir; reign; weird; science; servicies
... but it always helped
me with receive and achieve.
JJ
Ted Schuerzinger
> FWIW the UK spelling czar has just pronounced that this rule will no
> longer be taught in UK (or possibly just English) schools since there
> are too many exceptions.
>
> In fact google reveals many including heir; reign; weird; science;
> servicies ... but it always helped me with receive and achieve.
"Servicies"?
I always remembered the rule being
I before E
Except after C
Or when sounding like A
As in NEIGHBOR and WEIGH
That cuts down on the exceptions, although there are still a lot of
words from German with the EI in them.
riverman
I've always wondered about the 'a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y and w' rule.
W?
--riverman
Mark Brader
> I've always wondered about the 'a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y and w'
> rule.
Hey, it's better than the Wheel of Fortune rule.
ObPuzzle (open-ended): construct a long but sensible and interesting
sentence containing many different words where Y is a consonant and
none where it is a vowel.
> W?
As you know, "vowel" and "consonant" really are categories of sounds,
not letters, and English spelling is far from always corresponding
to sound. Words like "raw" and "how" do not end with a consonant
sound corresponding with the W, and therefore a few people consider
that their second and third letters, representing in combination a
vowel sound, must both be counted as vowels, just as is the case in
words like "tea".
Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that are
imported from Welsh, where W is legitimately a vowel, but none
of them is common enough in English that spelling rules taught to
schoolchildren need to take account of them.
--
Mark Brader "[It] was the kind of town where they spell
Toronto trouble TRUBIL, and if you try to correct them,
m...@vex.net they kill you." -- Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
My text in this article is in the public domain.
alexy
>Myron Buck:
>> I've always wondered about the 'a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y and w'
>> rule.
>
>Hey, it's better than the Wheel of Fortune rule.
>
>ObPuzzle (open-ended): construct a long but sensible and interesting
>sentence containing many different words where Y is a consonant and
>none where it is a vowel.
"Did you know that the yellow meat of a young yucca plant is edible?"
I don't know if it's true, but that wasn't one of your requirements.
And "sensible", "long", "many", and "interesting" are open to
interpretation!
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.
Mensanator
> m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:
> >Myron Buck:
> >> I've always wondered about the 'a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y and w'
> >> rule.
>
> >Hey, it's better than the Wheel of Fortune rule.
>
> >ObPuzzle (open-ended): construct a long but sensible and interesting
> >sentence containing many different words where Y is a consonant and
> >none where it is a vowel.
>
> "Did you know that the yellow meat of a young yucca plant is edible?"
> I don't know if it's true, but that wasn't one of your requirements.
> And "sensible", "long", "many", and "interesting" are open to
> interpretation!
"Yep, the youngker's favorite Yuletide gift was a yo-yo, a nice
bright yellow one (resembles an egg-yolk) picked up over yonder in
Yorkshire."
Kevin Stone
> Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that are
> imported from Welsh
Imported to where? Cwm is purely a Welsh word.
--
Kev
Richard Heathfield
>
>> Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that are
>> imported from Welsh
>
> Imported to where?
English.
> Cwm is purely a Welsh word.
Yes, in much the same way that your wallet belongs purely to you, a
nicety that is unlikely to concern the mugger who is strolling off
with it.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Forged article? See
http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/usenet/comp.lang.c/msgauth.php
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Kevin Stone
>>> imported from Welsh
>>
>> Imported to where?
>
> English.
ASAIK it hasn't, and I live within 30 miles of the border.
It's a Welsh word spoken by people when speaking Welsh, and isn't used in an
English sentence.
--
Kev
Richard Heathfield
>>>> Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that
>>>> are imported from Welsh
>>>
>>> Imported to where?
>>
>> English.
>
> ASAIK it hasn't, and I live within 30 miles of the border.
I grew up in Gloucester, which is around the same distance away from
the Welsh border, and during my childhood I heard the word used on
quite a few occasions, unselfconsciously and unaffectedly, by the
/English/. (I knew very few Welsh people during my childhood, for
the excellent reason that most Welsh people are too bright to move
to Gloucester.)
> It's a Welsh word spoken by people when speaking Welsh, and isn't
> used in an English sentence.
I don't speak Welsh. I can't even say "I don't speak Welsh" in
Welsh. But I have certainly used the word "cwm" in an English
sentence on several occasions (and, I should perhaps add, in
circwmstances that were not contrived for the sake of a rec.puzzles
discussion). I have also heard other non-Welsh-speaking
English-speakers use it in English sentences. It's actually a
relatively common English word. If you rub off the grime on the
bottom, you can easily make out "gwnaed yng Nghymru", but that will
probably come off with a bit of light sanding.
Mark Brader
>>>> Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that are
>>>> imported from Welsh
Kevin Stone:
> It's a Welsh word spoken by people when speaking Welsh, and isn't used
> in an English sentence.
Compilers of English-language dictionaries seem to think otherwise.
The OED Supplement, for example, cites among others this sentence from
a 1936 item in "Nature":
Its glaciers... widened the basins into cwms and gave to the basin
its only fiord.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | This is Programming as a True Art Form, where style
m...@vex.net | is more important than correctness... --Pontus Hedman
Mike Terry
news:h1o0m2$2tui$1...@adenine.netfront.net...
I'd always learned the rule as:
I before E,
except after C,
when the sound is "EE".
(Sorry if my use of quotes is ungramatical - I'm not sure how they apply in
this situation!)
So the rule does not apply in any of your above cases, which are all a bit
ad-hoc in nature, but it still covers the common confusion with "receive",
"believe" etc., and I think it's pretty reliable for that?
Regards,
Mike.
Alan Morgan
It's a perfectly cromulent word in English. The Welsh had it first, but
we don't mind sharing. You can keep Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndro-
bwllllantysiliogogogoch, however.
It might be an amusing puzzle to have questions along the lines of:
Give an English word derived/borrowed from:
* Welsh (we know this one)
* Tagalog
* Basque
* Finnish
To keep it interesting, I think, it shouldn't be "the word that we use
in English to describe an obviously foreign thing", although opinions
might differ.
(I see that Wikipedia already has a page like this. Way to suck the fun
out of life, guys)
Alan
--
Defendit numerus
Eric Sosman
The discussion attains new hieghts.
--
Eric Sosman
eso...@ieee-dot-org.invalid
CBFalconer
>>
>>> ObPuzzle (open-ended): construct a long but sensible and
>>> interesting sentence containing many different words where Y
>>> is a consonant and none where it is a vowel.
>>
>> "Did you know that the yellow meat of a young yucca plant is
>> edible?" I don't know if it's true, but that wasn't one of your
>> requirements. And "sensible", "long", "many", and "interesting"
>> are open to interpretation!
>
> "Yep, the youngker's favorite Yuletide gift was a yo-yo, a nice
> bright yellow one (resembles an egg-yolk) picked up over yonder
> in Yorkshire."
yesterday, yielding young yammering Yankee yams
--
[mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net)
[page]: <http://cbfalconer.home.att.net>
Try the download section.
Esra Sdrawkcab
wrote:
>
>> Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that are
>> imported from Welsh
>
> Imported to where? Cwm is purely a Welsh word.
>
(Aber)cwmboi ya!
--
Siggy played guitar
Esra Sdrawkcab
I beleive it's often mispelt (SinC) "coombe" yn saesneg.
>
--
Siggy played guitar
Esra Sdrawkcab
English is not so much an eclectic language, but rather a dipsomanic one.
paraphrase from, um, was it Douglas Adams?
--
Siggy played guitar
Richard Heathfield
<snip>
>
> I beleive [cwm is] often mispelt (SinC) "coombe" yn saesneg.
Well, perhaps, although the latter comes from the Anglo-Saxon "cumb"
rather than from the Welsh. They could be unrelated (although it
would be an astounding coincidence if they are).
Anyway, to me they mean slightly different things. A coombe is a
wide expanse of meadowland or pasture or countryside that happens
to have a broad dip in the middle - a hollow, if you like - whereas
a cwm has a lot less nice and a lot more attitude: a valley with
rocks in. Coombes are for bunny rabbits, and cwms are for goats (or
yetis).
Esra Sdrawkcab
<r...@see.sig.invalid> wrote:
> Esra Sdrawkcab said:
>
> <snip>
>>
>> I beleive [cwm is] often mispelt (SinC) "coombe" yn saesneg.
>
> Well, perhaps, although the latter comes from the Anglo-Saxon "cumb"
> rather than from the Welsh. They could be unrelated (although it
> would be an astounding coincidence if they are).
>
> Anyway, to me they mean slightly different things. A coombe is a
> wide expanse of meadowland or pasture or countryside that happens
> to have a broad dip in the middle - a hollow, if you like - whereas
> a cwm has a lot less nice and a lot more attitude: a valley with
> rocks in. Coombes are for bunny rabbits, and cwms are for goats (or
> yetis).
In welsh, "dyffryn" would be a better fit to your first description,
whilst corrie or cirque (new word to me) the hollowed out amphitheatre
created by the root of a glacier would fit your second.
Cwm, to me, is a more generic word for valley: the glaciated examples in
the South Wales Valleys, as well as V shaped river cut ones (e.g.
Cwmystwyth)
There are several steep sided "coombs" (around Stroud)
The Cornish and Devonshire "coombes" I take to be derived from the Celtic?
--
Siggy played guitar
Ted Schuerzinger
> English is not so much an eclectic language, but rather a dipsomanic
> one. paraphrase from, um, was it Douglas Adams?
Don't you mean kleptomaniac?
Ted Schuerzinger
>> Anyway, to me they mean slightly different things. A coombe is a
>> wide expanse of meadowland or pasture or countryside that happens
>> to have a broad dip in the middle - a hollow, if you like - whereas
>> a cwm has a lot less nice and a lot more attitude: a valley with
>> rocks in. Coombes are for bunny rabbits, and cwms are for goats (or
>> yetis).
>
> In welsh, "dyffryn" would be a better fit to your first description,
Probably because it's dyffrynt from a cwm. ;-)
Esra Sdrawkcab
wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:30:49 +0100, Esra Sdrawkcab wrote:
>
>> English is not so much an eclectic language, but rather a dipsomanic
>> one. paraphrase from, um, was it Douglas Adams?
>
> Don't you mean kleptomaniac?
Probably
>
--
Siggy played guitar
Matthew Russotto
riverman <myro...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I've always wondered about the 'a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y and w' rule.
>W?
Blame the Welsh. A couple of words there, "cwm" being the only one I
can think of off the top of my head. (a valley which extends up a
mountain).
--
It's times like these which make me glad my bank is Dial-a-Mattress
Mike Terry
news:h1p74v$9fa$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
:-) Well, sure there are loads of cases my rule doesn't apply to, and I've
no idea how to make up a rule to work those out - it's almost as though
someone made up English spelling as they went along!
>
> --
> Eric Sosman
> eso...@ieee-dot-org.invalid
Ted Schuerzinger
> Well, sure there are loads of cases my rule doesn't apply to, and I've
> no idea how to make up a rule to work those out - it's almost as though
> someone made up English spelling as they went along!
William Caxton?
Derek Holt
wrote:
> In article <ecd1aace-956f-4e2e-b46f-aa1ee5551...@f30g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>,
>
> riverman <myronb...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >I've always wondered about the 'a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y and w' rule.
> >W?
>
> Blame the Welsh. A couple of words there, "cwm" being the only one I
> can think of off the top of my head. (a valley which extends up a
> mountain).
> --
I sometimes have to resort to reading Newsgroups using Google Groups,
and I've noticed that when I read this thread, it starts producing
sponsored links advertising courses in Welsh. Yes, blame the Welsh!
Derek Holt.
Phil Carmody
Imported to English wordlists. Where it sits alongside
other great English words such as gaijin and dzhos.
Phil
--
Marijuana is indeed a dangerous drug.
It causes governments to wage war against their own people.
-- Dave Seaman (sci.math, 19 Mar 2009)
Phil Carmody
> In article <88adnaHv5azEnN3X...@bt.com>,
> Kevin Stone <newsa...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>>>>> Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that are
>>>>> imported from Welsh
>>>>
>>>> Imported to where?
>>>
>>> English.
>>
>>ASAIK it hasn't, and I live within 30 miles of the border.
>>
>>It's a Welsh word spoken by people when speaking Welsh, and isn't used in an
>>English sentence.
>
> It's a perfectly cromulent word in English. The Welsh had it first, but
> we don't mind sharing. You can keep Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndro-
> bwllllantysiliogogogoch, however.
>
> It might be an amusing puzzle to have questions along the lines of:
>
> Give an English word derived/borrowed from:
> * Welsh (we know this one)
Taffy.
> * Tagalog
Boondock.
> * Basque
Pass
> * Finnish
Boy.
(OK, that's a stretch, but not impossible, and I have to avoid sauna
due to a recent injury.)
> To keep it interesting, I think, it shouldn't be "the word that we use
> in English to describe an obviously foreign thing", although opinions
> might differ.
Saunas go back further in British history than most things in Finnish
history. So shouldn't really be considered obviously foreign, but I
presume that's what you're making reference to.
Richard Heathfield
> "Kevin Stone" <newsa...@hotpop.com> writes:
>>> Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that are
>>> imported from Welsh
>>
>> Imported to where? Cwm is purely a Welsh word.
>
> Imported to English wordlists. Where it sits alongside
> other great English words such as gaijin and dzhos.
Only to catch its breath - like at least one of those words. I've
never heard of "dzhos", but I've sometimes had occasion to use
"gaijin" in conversation (quite naturally). But yes okay, I agree
that it's not that common in typical English conversations.
I was going to do a little list of other English words and phrases
also stolen directly from other languages (not just etymologically
related) and used frequently in ordinary English conversations
(although I was prepared to include jargon terms if they are
well-known within the relevant subculture). But quite soon after
starting I recalled something said elsethread about online lists,
so I decided not to bother after all. This is as far as I got,
though:
avant garde (from French)
bona fide (from Latin)
chemise (from French)
delta (from Greek)
entrepreneur (from French)
fermata (from Italian - one of many musical terms thus stolen)
garage (from French)
hostel (from French)
idiot (from French)
joie de vivre (from French)
kosher (from Hebrew)
liaison (from French)
motif (from French)
nom de guerre (from French)
...
radius (from Latin)
schadenfreude (from German)
...
Dan Tilque
news:ov-dnfLFoekDjtzX...@speakeasy.net...
> In article
> <ecd1aace-956f-4e2e...@f30g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>,
> riverman <myro...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>I've always wondered about the 'a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y and w' rule.
>>W?
>
> Blame the Welsh. A couple of words there, "cwm" being the only one I
> can think of off the top of my head. (a valley which extends up a
> mountain).
Yep, them Welsh are really un-crwth...
--
Dan Tilque
Esra Sdrawkcab
I've been very cwrw'd.
--
Siggy played guitar
Justin C
> amo...@xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Morgan) writes:
>> In article <88adnaHv5azEnN3X...@bt.com>,
>> Kevin Stone <newsa...@hotpop.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Of course, there are also a handful of words like "cwm" that are
>>>>>> imported from Welsh
>>>>>
>>>>> Imported to where?
>>>>
>>>> English.
>>>
>>>ASAIK it hasn't, and I live within 30 miles of the border.
>>>
>>>It's a Welsh word spoken by people when speaking Welsh, and isn't used in an
>>>English sentence.
>>
>> It's a perfectly cromulent word in English. The Welsh had it first, but
>> we don't mind sharing. You can keep Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndro-
>> bwllllantysiliogogogoch, however.
>>
>> It might be an amusing puzzle to have questions along the lines of:
>>
>> Give an English word derived/borrowed from:
>
> Boondock.
I would disagree with the strict "English"ness of that. American, yes,
but I'd never heard it in 42 years until I encountered an American using
it.
Two countries separated by a common language and all that. I think
America has much closer ties to the nations where Tagalog is spoken than
England does, hence the assimilation there of that particular word -
also, they probably have far more use for it, we're much more densely
populated and don't have many areas it could describe!
I think that, until the 70s, when we started importing a lot of American
TV shows, our two versions of English were diverging. Since that time,
especially with the advent of the internet, English has started to
become more and more Americanised. Given time I'm sure that there will
be little or no difference between them, and it will be mostly the
American version that will dominate. Shakespear, Chaucer, Dickens, etc.,
must be turning in their graves!
Justin.
--
Justin C, by the sea.
gerson
"John Jones" wrote
>
> "Ted Schuerzinger"
>> I before E, except after C. (I'm surprised nobody answered this before
>> now.)
>> --
>> Ted S.
> FWIW the UK spelling czar has just pronounced that this rule
> will no longer be taught in UK (or possibly just English) schools
> since there are too many exceptions.
So, the UK spelling czar is really a spelling nazi, and ought to be severely depreciated
Richard Heathfield
<snip>
> So, the UK spelling czar is really a spelling nazi, and ought to be
> severely depreciated
Presumably at 7% per annum.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
This line unintentionally left unblank
gerson
"Richard Heathfield" wrote
>> So, the UK spelling czar is really a spelling nazi, and ought to be
>> severely depreciated
>
> Presumably at 7% per annum.
sorry, depriecated