Did you know?

There are 923 words in the English language that break the "i before e" rule. Only 44 words follow rule.

This is according to the the BBC's QI television show in which a fan generated the figure according to a Scrabble wordlist.

The Oxford Dictionaries website of Oxford University Press states "The rule only applies when the sound represented is ‘ee’, though. It doesn’t apply to words like science or efficient, in which the –ie- combination does follow the letter c but isn’t pronounced ‘ee’." (Source: Wikipedia)

Basically, there are far too many exceptions to this rule to make it an actual rule. I still find myself reciting it when using words like "receive" and "perceive". But, yes, I think this one is going the same way as the dinosaurs.

Correction: yro'ue

A friend posted this on Facebook and just had to tag me in it, of course.

Save the thesaurus!

When I was a kid I always used to call the thesaurus a theasaurus...it sounded better to me. My mom used to laugh and say that it wasn't a dinosaur. This image reminds me of that.

Etymology: the evolution of expletives

Swearwords, cuss words, dirty words...whatever you call them, they've been around a lot longer than you think. Some of today's most popular expletives have been in use since the 16th century. Melissa Mohr recently wrote an article on how some of the swearwords we use today came about. 

Read through the original article here:

The modern history of swearing: Where all the dirtiest words come from 

Be sure to check out the bits at the end and find out what "larking" and "tipping the velvet" mean.

Your versus you're

Gary the grammar cactus

Obsolete words

A friend posted a link to this article on 18 obsolete words that should never have gone out of style. I've re-posted my top ten. Check out the original post for the full list.