Reign, Rein, Rain
Reign, Rein, Rain
Reign, go away? Rein, go away? Rain, go away?
Sometimes when I rush through something I am writing, I might use one of the above wrongly, not even thinking about it. Yes, that is one of the struggles with my mother tongue, the spelling of words that seem to flow from the mind effortlessly and are wrongly stabbed to the page, the screen, to the sentence.
Your "spell checker" won't catch them. It is one of those I before E exceptions along with the good old English horrors like slay and sleigh -- yet some of the more sophisticated context word checkers will ask about them -- but not always.
It embarrassed me to have an editor point to one of my words and say -- "You really mean . . ."
And Yes. She was right. I wish I remembered which word it was.
One of the really bright young girls one year behind me in high school had it all figured out for most of the confusing American English words, and taught me the separate seperate connection, which most most people do not mis-spell anyway. But I still have to go back and think, okay, a’s in the middle, e’s on the end -- which was Roberta’s means of remembering the spelling. Now-a-days I think par!
Moments ago on Xomba, I read a post where the story stated the horses and mules ["had broken their reigns"] and that is when I marveled at English, once again. Of course, the author or his editor will eventually catch it. I could not get involved in the story. But some writers have a hard time catching me. Many people liked the late James A Michener -- whose writing I could not get into though when screen-played into a movie -- I usually enjoyed. Perhaps I will revisit his style. Sometime.
Rain, no sweat. It rains cats and dogs, but more often frogs.
Rein, a guide, a horses’ reins, a means of controlling something, people or animals.
You may want to rein in your dog, your daughter, your son; your emotions.
Reign of terror, reign of the Virgin Queen. The American Embarrassment: The reign of George W Bush. What is worse is the fact that stupidity was “allowed” to reign.
I remember another editor equipped with a word processor and a spell checker and with it had taken “lightning” to “lightening” . . . and it took telling her that lightening was a good word like lightening the load, whereas lightning was also a good word -- and that is what a surviving colleague was struck by and what the article was about..
English. What a glorious mess. I will never forgive the change from normalacy to normalcy, largely fostered by Edwin Newman in his Strictly Speaking subtitled "Will America be the death of English ?" Published in 1974. He pointed out according to Wikipedia “banalities, cliches, pomposities, redundancies and catchphrases.” But he was actually a little early to experience and write before 1974 the pillorying given words like gay, or other words for the sake of political correctness. And in answering his question about American’s killing the Language? No, the English can do it too and have been moving right along in a slangy way.
I also suggest English stay alive and dynamic -- not fixed like Latin.
How is your reign going? Do you hope you can rein in your frivolous expenditures? Will rain dispel the drought in areas of the west this summer? Or will the rain mean terrible flooding?
Reign, rein, rain. I could use some rain.
But not too much.
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English Blooper
My first blooper was as a kid who had never spoken english before and was confronted with a french kid of my age on a boring summer day when i had no one to play with. Desperate for company i tried striking up a conversation and asked him, "Which class do you read in?" The smart ass replied, "I read in every class." His smirk was unbearable for me and that was the end of a prospective friendship. I still make mistakes but am more tolerant of people ticking me off and of my own limitations.
As if the similarity in certain words was not confusing enough, someone thought of defining them also Homonym, homophone, heteronym, heterophone, homograph, heterograph. and so many other 'nyms'.
The Americans and the British are willing to agree on almost everything from Iraqi oil, Osama bin laden to nukes but can't go together in spelling colo(u)r.
Language skills
Kind of like spellchecking with a Canadian spellcheck and submitting to an American site that has American spellcheck. My colour has a different flavour and a whole other sense of humour. So I do myself a favor and leave out the "u"s, now I consider myself byling"u"al. I like your philosophy of letting English be dynamic though, it has a life and personality of it's own, long live freedom of speech (such as it is sometimes).
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Tarot Truly Read.
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Spellchecker
The firefox spellchecker has no colo(u)r...and only a few days back i read someone here pointing out to the byter to get favo(u)rite correct w/o the u... and when i hear the children around me speaking the Queen's language today (its a proper smattering of English, Oriya and Hindi), i really do cringe...more at the sad distortion of their mother tongue than anything else! At least I speak and write my language ably! I dont think the dynamism of English is any problem, its way too dynamic and adaptable...and it was really evident in the Chinese English subtitle of Crouching Tiger-Hidden Dragon I once watched...try those subtitles and then decide!!!
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Dynamic
The English language is definitely dynamic - be it American or British. For example, the word w00t has 2 zeros in it. Who would ever have thought that any word would be spelled with numbers?
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The Reign in Spaign Stays Maignly on the Plaign, er, Pleign
I thank everyone for their comments.
The pleasures and paigns of English also partially stem from the puns connected to becoming adept at misuse of the "concrete spelling" adaptations to illustrate humor, humour, and add colour to the plain (plane, as in flat) phraseology.
Sometimes it is destructive. That is, it inhibits or makes convoluted what otherwise would be powerfully simple. My entire adult writing life has be caught between attempting to simplify explanations, reducing them to the lowest common denominator without appearing obviously condescending or being superficial in context or manner of writing.
One of my personal challenges is to write ever-more simply, but choose the right words where even more colorful word choices are available. Knowing complex ideas can be communicated in simple terms with the right choice of words compels me to struggle almost endlessly between the thousands of words available. Or more clearly, the many words one could use to approach an idea.
I am often caught in oversimplification of ideas that need full depth; that need to plunge the readers mind into the concepts subtleties, and to do so requires a understanding via a specialized vocabulary.
I am continually holding my selection of words up to my ideas of Hemingway or Steinbeck's powerful use of simple words to reach deeply, both emotionally and intellectually into the mind of the reader -- and to connect -- to share what I would like to share with the reader.
One of my recent xombytes -- that absolutely fails -- involves religious faith and science -- particularly astrophysics and cosmology, and the breadth and scale of "your" God, and putatively (My God!), the scale of science and religion. (It is a BIG universe. We are so brief an existence.)
www.xomba.com/your_purest_faith_and_the_brightest_bright
I think I will revisit the posting and eventually, re-write it. It is terribly presumptive, and it is terrible writing coming from me. I can do better, but I do not know how simple I can make it and still attempt to capture the numinous.
(I actually have a shorter version, and might post it.)
Now Religion. Plaignly speeking and the selection of words.
That is still the challenge. Marshall McLuhan, caused me to investigate the Chinese typewriter, but this was back in the late 1960's and things have changed since. Of course. The computers we had in the 60's were behemoths. (I wish I could take you all on a tour of the early 1960's at Los Alamos where "STRETCH" filled a huge floorspace; FORTRAN was the code, and "output" was on paper. In fact the printers were the most "visually exciting" thing about the computers then, and at the time, and subsequently, printers could spit out so much paper in seconds they were dangerous. That is, the paper flying on its trajectory was dangerous. There were guides to capture an erupting fountain of paper so it would stack neatly in fanfold 10 feet from the printer's business output end. Screen graphics were in the future.)
Chinese Typewriters. . .
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/123/340737421_27c96d49f7.jpg?v=0
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/images/im3k.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/kyb02.htm&h=388&w=1064&sz=23&hl=en&start=6&um=1&tbnid=_X3Sp0VqJ-ZMVM:&tbnh=55&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3DChinese%2Btypewriter%2B%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1B3GGGL_enUS244US245%26sa%3DN
In English "words" we build the same kinds of "idea" pictures that ideographs try to capture.
Factorials! (x!=?)
I know for the completeness of mathematics, just to finish off the concept and arrive at "continuity" it was necessary to finally extend the number stream to zero, a concept India invented, but seems not to have explored. . .
I knew an English "mathematical joke" was stated when I saw it in series in early calculus background. . .
Factorials
.
.
.
1! = 1
2! = 2
3! = 6
4! = 24
5! = 120
6! = 720
.
.
.
This series would not be "complete" without
0! = 1
Only in mathematics and religion. Like getting (1) "something" for "nothing" (0) by waving a magic wand (!)
And the Rein stays on the Plane in Spane.
Thanks agane.
unraigned imagination
with unalined comments...makes no pleign reading! i hv already given the ++1!
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It's Not How You Spell It, but How You Use It!
A lecture series on the history of english says repeatedly that--in the 24-hours of language's history--written language arose at about 11:10 p.m.
Spelling's good to know if you communicate by blackboard, and it makes this cyber-board discussion more- or less-intellectual; but you only really need it like a 'silent-e-'.Disagree? Join to Defend Your Honor!
reign, rein, rain
I love playing with words, thinking about words, arranging and rearranging words to fit my idea, plan, mood, whatever. Glad there are others out there who still value language, spelling and grammar. Passive voice and 'ie' words are forever on my personal problem list.
Unusual Rain in May
SK It has been an unusual rainy month of May in Delhi which is a record.But,your ideas have given me fresh insights
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Well, you write like a
Well, you write like a native speaker Taprial. Better than most...
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Thanks Chris
Thanks Chris. I could really get into speaking English only after i left school. Till then it was limited to the classroom. The early years were difficult but i am glad i recognised the importance and started when i did. Your comment means a lot.