re: #178 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
English makes up for its simplicity of grammar with being impossible to spell or pronounce, even to people who grow up with it.
Many so-called rules are littered with exceptions. The ditty learned in grammar school
“i” before “e” except after “c” or when pronounced as “a” as in “neighbor” or “weigh” applies except for “weird” and “leisure” and a host of other common terms.