braid | Doorway Between Worlds

It’s amazing how many vowel combinations can be used to make the same sound. Take the long “a” sound, for example. This sound can be written using ay, ai, ey, ei, or a/consonant/silent e. Then there are the exceptions. I salute anyone who takes on English as a second language, because it’s a mess.

There are a lot of these tricky words, but I’ve been asked to talk about the word braid. How do you remember how to spell braid? With the help of Shrek, naturally.

Who would you rather be – Princess Fiona or Donkey?

(I really hope you said Fiona.)

And here she is, folks…

Whether Fiona looks like a human or an ogre, she’s got wonderful hair. Her hair is often styled in a rope braid. A rope braid consists of two strands of hair wrapped around each other. If a braid has at least three strands, it can be called a plait. Fiona likes to plait her hair into a braid. Both of these words make the long “a” sound using ai. (Just like the word hair.) So think about Fiona plaiting her hair, and you will remember how to spell braid.

Note: If you’d rather be Donkey instead, you will be remembered as a creature with bad hair who constantly brayed at everyone. Instead of showing off your beautful plait, you will be tempted by waffles on a plate and will force your friends to have to rescue you from your idiocy.

So please be Fiona, and enjoy your braid.

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Update: Given all the discussion on this post, I’ve updated the definitions of plait and braid, to avoid any confusion. 🙂

Image of Fiona from Shrek

This post is dedicated to Nicole De Courval. Thanks for reading!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, where I will chase after the cruel letter C…