My Fatal Flaw

Picture, if you will, me at age nineteen.

I am in the honors program at the University of Montana, which means that instead of having my Western Civ section taught by a graduate student, I am lucky enough to take the section taught by the actual professor, the articulate man who gives the lectures in the large hall. The one with the eyebrows.

We have turned in our first papers on the pantheon of the Classical Greeks. This is before copiers, so I have dutifully typed my paper on a “master” and run off copies on the mimeograph machine with its fragrant purple ink.

I have given a copy to each member of my class as well as the professor. We have all done this, we have all taken time to read each other’s papers and make notes. We are the honors students. We over-achieve.

I’m also overly confident, which I shouldn’t be.

We were supposed to write a paper about whether or not the average Greeks believed in the existence of actual gods up there on Mount Olympus. As a generalizer, one who takes large swathes of information and finds ways to knit together the disparate, I have chosen a stupid thesis.

I should have said, yes they did, or no they just thought these were cool stories. Instead, I cobbled together some overly inclusive idea about making sense of the world, and have ended up with an undefined and indefensible thesis.

This is not why the professor takes me to task, though.

That comes later.

First, he tells the class to look at my paper. Then he announces, “I’d like to point out to you all the most extraordinary part of this paper. In every single instance where there is an ‘ie’ or ‘ei’ combination, this writer has written the word incorrectly.”

I erupt in flames of shame and burn to a crisp on the spot.

I know the rule. I knew it then. It’s never made any sense to me. I look at “ie” and “ei” combinations and am struck stupid. I have attempted to remedy my confusion by repeating “i before e except after c, or when sounding as a as in neighbor and weigh”, but then we have neither, seize, forfeit, height, codeine, protein, caffeine, weird, and heifer.

Is my confusion understandable? I think so. Forty-six years later, I’m still bad at it.