Examples & Exceptions to the “I Before E Except After C” Rule

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Plus, where the saying came from and its variations
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You probably learned “I before E except after C” in grade school...and you likely know that there are a ton of exceptions to this rule—so many that it can be hard to keep track of them! That’s where we come in. In this article, we’ll explain the “i before e except after c” rule and review its many exceptions, plus explore where the saying came from and why English words are so tricky to spell correctly in the first place.

“I Before E Except After C” Explained

The saying “I before E except after C” is a mnemonic rhyme to help English speakers remember how to spell words containing “ie” or “ei.” This rule works for common words like “believe” or “ceiling,” but there are many exceptions to the rule that it's not that widely applicable.

Section 1 of 6:

What does “I before E except after C” mean?

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  1. The rhyme is a type of mnemonic device, or a learning technique that helps you remember information. According to the rule, all English words that have an “i” and an “e” next to each other should be spelled “ie” unless they come after the letter “c,” in which case they’d be spelled “cei.” [1]
    • Example: In “friend,” the “i” comes before the “e” because there is no “c” preceding them.
    • Example: In the word “ceiling,” “e” comes before “i” since they both come after a “c.”
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Section 2 of 6:

Is “I before E except after C” accurate?

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  1. In fact, there are so many exceptions to the rule that some people wonder why it’s even a rule at all. One study examined 350,000 English words and showed that about 75% of words with an “ie” or “ei” combination follow the “I before E rule,” but only about 25% of words follow the “except after C” part! [2]
    • Some argue that the rule should just be shortened to a simple “I usually comes before E” since the “except after C” part is inaccurate more often than not.
  2. In 1880, linguists tried to address the inconsistencies by editing the rhyme to say “I before E except after C, or when sounded as ‘A’ as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh.’” This is better since it makes words like “freight” or “vein” follow the rule, but there are still too many exceptions to be summed up in an easy-to-remember rhyme. [3] The Merriam-Webster dictionary has joked that to be totally correct, the full rhyme should be: [4]
    • I before E, except after C
      Or when sounded as A as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'
      Unless the C is part of a 'sh' sound as in 'glacier'
      Or it appears in comparatives and superlatives like 'fancier'
      And also except when the vowels are sounded as E as in 'seize'
      Or I as in 'height'
      Or also in '-ing' inflections ending in '-e' as in 'cueing'
      Or in compound words as in 'albeit'
      Or occasionally in technical words with strong etymological links to their parent languages as in 'cuneiform'
      Or in other numerous and random exceptions such as 'science', 'forfeit', and 'weird'.
    • The full rhyme is so absurd that there’s now an “I before E except after C” meme template where users post “I before E except” and then create their own explanation using words that break the rule (for example, “...except when your foreign neighbors Keith and Heidi seize their eight sleights from feisty weightlifters”).
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Section 3 of 6:

Examples of the Rule

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  1. Lots of common English words follow the first part of the rule, “I before E.” Take a look at these everyday words for reference: [5]
    • Achieve
    • Believe
    • Field
    • Relieved
    • Shriek
    • Tier
    • Yield
  2. There are also plenty of common words that follow the “except after C” part. However, keep in mind that these words are outweighed by all of the exceptions nearly 3 to 1: [6]
    • Conceit
    • Deceit
    • Inconceivable
    • Perceive
    • Receipt
    • Receive
    • Transceiver
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Section 4 of 6:

Exceptions to the Rule

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  1. One category of exceptions includes words that are correctly spelled with “cie.” In these words, the “cie” spelling makes a “sh” sound (like in “glacier”) or an “s” sound (like in “society”). Some more examples include: [7]
    • Ancient
    • Conscience
    • Deficiency
    • Efficient
    • Policies (the plural form of words ending in “-cy,” like “policy,” often change to a “-cies” spelling)
    • Science
    • Species
    • Sufficient
  2. Like the extended rhyme suggests (“...or when sounded as ‘A’ as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh’”), this category of words is spelled with E before I, even though there is no preceding C: [8]
    • Beige
    • Eight
    • Feign
    • Freight
    • Heinous
    • Neigh
    • Reign
    • Sleigh
  3. There are a handful of words, like “heist,” that put E before I and are pronounced with a short A or “eye” sound. More example include: [9]
    • Apartheid
    • Fahrenheit
    • Feist
    • Feisty
    • Height
    • Kaleidoscope
    • Meiosis
    • Poltergeist
    • Seismic
  4. Other “ei” words get an “ee” sound and are spelled with E before I even when there’s no C beforehand, like the word “seize.” More example include: [10]
    • Achieve
    • Caffeine
    • Either
    • Leisure
    • Neither
    • Pleistocene
    • Protein
    • Weird
  5. When you add superlative endings like “-er” or “-est” to words like “juicy,” you get spellings that break the rule (“juicier” or “juiciest”). Take a look at these examples: [11]
    • Icier, iciest (from “icy”)
    • Lacier, laciest (from “lacy”)
    • Saucier, sauciest (from “saucy”)
    • Spicier, spiciest (from “spicy”)
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Section 5 of 6:

Where did “I before E except after C” come from?

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  1. However, versions of the saying had been around for a long time previously. [12] The English language is not very orthographic (AKA, the spelling and pronunciation of a lot of words don’t follow “standard” conventions). So, linguists and grammarians tried to come up with rules or guidelines to make spelling easier to learn. “I before E except after C” is definitely easy to remember, but unfortunately leaves a lot of room for error.
    • Additions like the 1880 “...or when sounded as ‘A’ as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh’” have tried to make the rule more complete, but there are just too many different linguistic influences in English to sum up in a catchy rhyme.
Section 6 of 6:

Why is English spelling so difficult?

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  1. When the Romans invaded Britain in the 1st century AD, they mixed their Latin language and alphabet with Brittonic, a Celtic language that was spoken in the British Isles. Then, the Angles and Saxons invaded in the 7th century, bringing their Germanic influence to the language of Britain. The island was invaded yet again by the Vikings in the 9th century, bringing some Old Norse influence and changing the language even more. [13]
    • The last major outside influence came when the Norman French conquered England in 1066 and replaced a lot of the existing vocabulary with French words (this is where we get English words like “etiquette” or “ballet” that look and sound super French).
    • Later, as the British acquired colonies all over the world during the “Age of Exploration,” the English language gained words from Africa, India, the Americas, and more.
    • All of this linguistic mixing explains why English spelling rules are so inconsistent and why some words can be spelled similarly but pronounced totally differently (for example, “though” and “through”).
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      References

      1. ↑ https://www.wordgenius.com/i-before-e-except-after-c-5-exceptions-to-this-famous-rule/ZECiECLW2AAHcZC_
      2. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/28/the-i-before-e-except-after-c-rule-is-a-giant-lie/
      3. ↑ https://www.wordgenius.com/i-before-e-except-after-c-5-exceptions-to-this-famous-rule/ZECiECLW2AAHcZC_
      4. ↑ https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/i-before-e-except-after-c
      5. ↑ https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/i-before-e-e-before-i
      6. ↑ https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/i-before-e-e-before-i
      7. ↑ https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/i-before-e-e-before-i
      8. ↑ https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/i-before-e-e-before-i
      9. ↑ https://capitalizemytitle.com/i-before-e-except-after-c-rule/
      1. ↑ https://www.wordgenius.com/i-before-e-except-after-c-5-exceptions-to-this-famous-rule/ZECiECLW2AAHcZC_
      2. ↑ https://www.wordgenius.com/i-before-e-except-after-c-5-exceptions-to-this-famous-rule/ZECiECLW2AAHcZC_
      3. ↑ https://www.wordgenius.com/i-before-e-except-after-c-5-exceptions-to-this-famous-rule/ZECiECLW2AAHcZC_
      4. ↑ https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150605-your-language-is-sinful

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