Spelling trouble

SIR – The spelling problems experienced by Rosalind Sheila Wills (Letters, February 20) are naught compared with those of an old friend whose only registered forename was Shiela. Arnold Burston

Burton-on-trent, Staffordshire

SIR – Unless the Dorset accent is rife with dialectal curiosities, four of Tim Wells’s exceptions to the rule “i before e except after c, when the sound is ee” (Letters, February 20) do not contain “ee”: surfeit, forfeit, counterfeit and sheikh.

To the legitimate rule-breakers, seize and protein, may be added caffeine, plebeian, species, and (for some) heinous and (n)either.

There are also those of us in Britain who pronounce weir and weird as disyllables, the first element being ‘ee’. Don’t judge us. Octavius Machell

Watendlath, Cumbria