I think there’s a plot to dumb down the English language.

Why do we need punctuation? What does it matter how I spell it as long as you know what I mean?

The latest assault comes from — of all places — the British government.

The Associated Press reported the other day that the British government has sent some guidance to primary teachers regarding the old spelling rule that we learned as children by reciting a little rhyme: “‘I’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c.”

The teachers were instructed not to bother passing on that rule to pupils because there are too many exceptions.

The rule is “not worth teaching” because it doesn’t account for words like “veil” and “their.”

Nor, I would add, does it consider words like “neighbor,” “weigh” and “seize.” Conversely, there is “fancied,” and other inflections of words ending in “cy,” where it’s “ie” after “c.”

Still, the rule applies in many instances and was always a good starting point. You learned the rule that applied to most words and then discovered the exceptions. Nobody ever said English was easy.

Knowing how to spell is a handy tool for a writer/editor. Even more important, though, is knowing when to consult a dictionary.

Of course, the dictionary doesn’t come out of the drawer too often now that there’s “spellcheck” in most word-processing programs.

Not that spell-checking is without its problems. Some programs suggest an alternative to replace the misspelled word it found in your text.

That’s how one day, when one of our reporters didn’t know how to spell “a capella,” he let his spell-checker take care of it. The story he submitted said during the special concert the chorus would “sing archipelago.”

Irv Dean is The Daily Gazette’s city editor.