Comments on: I before E, ESPECIALLY after C

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 25 May 2011 03:05:05 +0000

After removing the plurals of words ending in in “cy,” if you add the additional caveat of words with the suffix “cient (cience)” you knock out the vast majority of the remaining words. And all of those words count as a single exception. Similarly, all words using the root scient, scient, and science are from sciens, the present participle stem of the Latin verb scire (“to know”) and therefore ALL constitute a single exception. Most of the words remaining have foreign (non-English and therefore exempt from the rule) origins. So with merely 3 additional broad exceptions to add to the rule, and especially if somewhere in the body of the rule we add a phrase like “except for weird words like weigh,” we can still have a workable rule.

By: SnugglePuma

SnugglePuma — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 02:13:15 +0000

bobby is right, and you are right too, they should change the rule to “i before e, except after c, and if you are adding an s to a word ending in y.” Now go through and crunch numbers again and lets see if there really are more exceptions than the rule…

By: I before E « WLOG blog

I before E « WLOG blog — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 02:43:14 +0000

[...] then, for completeness, I feel I should offer a link to this blog post, which does a quasi-mathematical analysis of words in English that follow or violate the rule, and [...]

By: Ben Riddell

Ben Riddell — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:16:31 +0000

Hi Dave,

You’re missing 1/2 of the rule. “I before E, except after C, and except when said ‘ai’ as in ‘neighbor’ or ‘weigh’.” So inveigh, feint, skein, freight, and others don’t violate the rule as fully expressed.

I still have found over a dozen violations (such as either, eider, eidetic, gneiss, deity, deist, epideictic, sleight, and a few others). English is one of the most complicated languages, orthographically, because it is so eclectic. Infuriating, if you let it be so, but it can also entertaining.

By: Suzanne Karl-Brigman

Suzanne Karl-Brigman — Mon, 10 May 2010 22:35:42 +0000

English spelling would make a lot more sense if people also studied the history of the language. Look up spelling and pronunciation changes from the 1400s to 1600s.

By: bobby

bobby — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:21:12 +0000

if you notice the list of words that violate the rule after a “c”, most of those words are plural versions of words, such as “aristocracies.” I think these words do follow the “rules” just not the one you’re so worked up about :]… but yeah english is a pretty messed up language.

By: Bruce Graham

Bruce Graham — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:30:36 +0000

In the UK, there used to be a fuller version of this that ended with “…whenever the sound is “eee”".
Having read the article, I am unsure whether this helps or hinders, because my brain is now bleeding from trying to comprehand the analysis – however, I thought I’d just add it into the mix anyhow.

Bruce Graham

By: links for 2010-01-19 « doug – off the record

links for 2010-01-19 « doug – off the record — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:05:49 +0000

[...] I before E, ESPECIALLY after C | Dave Mozealous Every American elementary schooler is taught the mnemonic device, “I before E, except after C.” I am dumbfounded by how bad this rule is. I misspell words all the time. Words like policies, species, and caffeine I can never spell correctly because they violate the rule (tags: spelling) [...]

By: A Grammar Rule Gone Bad | eLearning Brothers

A Grammar Rule Gone Bad | eLearning Brothers — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:05:14 +0000

[...] I before E, ESPECIALLY after C [...]

By: Andrew Scivally

Andrew Scivally — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:46:37 +0000

Love it! Now I need to somehow stop saying that rule in my head every time I try to spell those words.