[Info-vax] Long uptime cut short by Hurricane Sandy

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <nospam-6D6374.07462614022013 at news.chingola.ch>,
	Paul Sture <nospam at sture.ch> writes:
> In article 
> <910855dc-f787-4b02-9b0f-befad67e2ac2 at fn10g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
>  AEF <spamsink2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Feb 12, 4:50 pm, hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---
>> undress to reply) wrote:
>> > In article
>> > <30cb251a-22f9-43a5-84c5-741ea5209... at hl5g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, AEF
>> >
>> > <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> writes:
>> > > disc - CD, frisbee (flying disc), phonograph record, DVD, videodisc,
>> > > optical disc (or disk), abbreviation for discount, disc brakes, Blu-
>> > > ray disc
>> >
>> > > disk - disk drive; image of a celestial body as visible in a
>> > > telescope, or in the case of the Sun or Moon, also in the naked eye,
>> > > and in the case of a star, which is something too small to be seen as
>> > > a normal disk, a diffraction disk (in naked eye or telescope); slipped
>> > > disk in the backbone
>> >
>> > Yes, there are rules, which vary from country to country.  But what ARE
>> > the rules?  Can you describe them without examples?
>> 
>> The only hard and fast rule of English spelling that's guaranteed to
>> work all the time is the following variant of the i before e rule:
>> 
>> It's i before e, except when it's e before i. :-D
> 
> "Weird" is quite aptly the exception to the "i before e, except after c" 
> rule.
> 

When this subject comes up I always tell people the anecdote about
when I was in grade school (2nd or 3rd grade).  After teaching us
the rule we had a spelling test of ten words.  everyone got 0.  The
teacher chose 10 words that were all exceptions so all us naive kids
applied the rule and got them all wrong.  I'll bet she thought it was
funny. :-(  Of course, today she would probably get fired after all
the parents complained about damaging their kids self-esteem.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>