Wednesday, December 15, 2010

"I" Before "E"

This list of words is based on the "rule" that I learned as a student of junior high school English:

"I before E except after C; exceptions are either, neither,
foreign, leisure, protein, seize and weird."

Or...

"I before E except after C unless in neighbor and weigh."

I think there may be one or two (or quite a few!) other exceptions.

ancient
apartheid
atheist
cleidomastoid (collar bone)
conscience
deign
deism
deity
eight
feign
feisty
freight
geisha
height, heighten
heist
inveigh
kaleidoscope
monotheism
neigh
neighbor, neighborhood
Pleiades (star cluster in Orion)
Pleistocene
prescient
reign
rein
reindeer
reinstall, preinstall, reincarnation, reinvent, reinstate, reinstitute, (plus many other "re-" words
science
sheik
skein
sleigh
sleight (of hand)
species
stein
theist
weight
veil
vein

Any others folks?

3 comments:

  1. I never heard the first rule you cite, but the version of the second rule I heard went, " i before e, except after c, or when sounded as "a", as in "neighbor or "weigh". That version made it easier to apply to other words like "rein" or "deign". Still and all, there are so many exceptions to this "rule", that it seems silly that it's a rule at all.

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  2. Some People function better if "there's a rule for that". :-)

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  3. I'm a foreign species of a sovereign society who uses this ancient science in a weird way.
    I just type it one way or the other then look at the word and i can tell right away if it's right or wrong.
    Thanks nieghbour.....
    lol!

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