>>5225
I am older than you and do not remember 'seperate' ever being acceptable. My 1990s edition of the OED includes it but tagged 'obs.' Sounds like you had a cranky and misinformed old teacher.

>>5226

I've found some people who were taught the same thing here:

http://thomasfreudenberg.com/blog/archive/2007/01/15/separate-vs-seperate.aspx

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>This appears to be another of the UK/US divisors.

>I actually went to my attic and found my old case of school papers and my old school dictionary (pack rat -- sue me)

>In the UK, we were taught that there were two different words. SepArate, a verb: "We need to separate those rabbits"

>and SepErate, a noun: "We now keep the rabbits in seperate pens"

>As they provide distinctly different information, they are perfectly valid -- as long as people continue to agree with those meanings.

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>separate: to split into two etc. - the act

>seperate: two different things etc. - the result

>This is what I was taught in school.

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but I don't know how old they are.

It seems like I'd remembered the two spellings the wrong way around anyway.