Bridges: An Un-School Dad and a Public School Teacher
“Does fence have an e at the end?” Joel asks me.
“Yeah, why?” I ask.
“Then it’s not following the rules. It should be pronounced feeeeenced instead,” Joel says with a multi-syllable long-e sound. The day before he was upset that tomb and bomb didn’t make the same sound. So, I explained comb just to see how he would react.
“I agree.”
“But it’s not following the rules.”
“Language isn’t about rules. There are trends, but not rules. You can say that words ending in -e usually make that sound, but it’s still a description. Think of it this way, how often do I wear orange?”
“Almost never.”
“But is it a rule? Can I still wear orange?”
“When you wear a Giants shirt,” Joel points out