colonel

ghoti

lol degustibus. For the rest of us... if you did not understand deg's response, google "ghoti." You'll find some interesting thoughts on spelling in English also.

Manilavanilla, no existing word is completely a violation of spelling rules. It;s just that the rules are a bit more complex than you think. In the particular case of "colonel," the spelling is correct but the pronunciation is "incorrect." Mindbending, I know.

I think it has to do with the British. All the french language influence and nobody knows what is going on.

Exceptions are often made in English. i'm sure we all remember the old elementary school grammar rule, "i before e, except after C".
But there are plenty of exceptions to this rule "hence the C".

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19991217

It seems there were two forms of the word and we took the spelling of one and the pronunciation of the other.

Oh and Taylor, I personally think the problem isn't with the exceptions, it's with the rules. In particular I think the ie, ei thing, like "colonel" has a lot to do with etymology and, if it were taught that way, would be a lot simpler. Depending on which language the word came from and how it was pronounced in that language, it is spelled a particular way.

colonel = kernel,
so kernel of corn should be spelled colonel. ;)

joachim, excellent link