Suggest improvements for the highlighted problem area:
In an estuary, the meeting place of a river and a tidal sea, harsh conditions can adversely effect commercial shipping. For example, near the Amazon delta is the estuary for the Para River in which the incoming tide can build up to a flood wave of water. As the wave moves inland, the estuary becomes narrower and the wave becomes a wall of water that can grow to hieghts of 5 or 10 meters. This daily tidal wave can cause significant damage along the river bank and is accompanied by a frightening sound called the pororoca (thundering water). Needless to say, few merchants are anxious to operate ships in such an estuary.
Answer:
- Spelling -
In the middle of the opening paragraph a word has been misspelled:
As the wave moves inland, the estuary becomes narrower and the wave becomes a wall of water that can grow to hieghts of 5 or 10 meters.
This brings us to the issue of spelling rules. Some people, especially educators, insist that rules for spelling are useful. Others contend that there are so many exceptions in the English vocabulary that rules are not very helpful. We take the position that by studying the rules and all the exceptions, we are likely to remember at least some proper spellings. So we begin here with a prime rule of spelling:
Rule: i before e
Examples: believe, friend, piece
Exceptions:
(1) except after c as in receive,
(2) or when the sound is a as in neighbor and weigh,
(3) or when ending a plural noun (democracies),
(4) or when ei has just always been used.
To learn these exceptions to the ie spelling rule, we recommend you say each word out loud, put a finger over the word, spell it out loud, and then look at the word again and pronounce it silently to yourself. By doing this, you will help yourself to memorize the spelling. Yes, this is tedious. But it should only take a few minutes, and it really will help improve your spelling skills. Try it for each of the following words:
ancient
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foreign
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forfeit
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Fahrenheit
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height
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leisure
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neither
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seize
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sleight
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sovereign
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surfeit
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weird
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In this list of exceptions we find the correct spelling for the word height in our opening paragraph:
As the wave moves inland, the estuary becomes narrower and the wave becomes a wall of water that can grow to heights of 5 or 10 meters.
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