• chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        Ah, yes of course…

        i before e,

        except after c,

        or when sounded as a,

        as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh’,

        or when it appears in comparatives and superlatives like ‘fancier’,

        or when the c sounds as sh as in ‘glacier’,

        or when the vowel sounds like ee as in ‘seize’,

        or i as in ‘height’,

        or when it shows up in compound words such as ‘albeit’,

        or when it shows up in –ing inflections of verbs that end in e, like queueing,

        or occasionally in technical words that have a strong etymological link to their parent languages such as ‘cuneiform’ and ‘caffeine’,

        and in numerous other random exceptions such as ‘science’, ‘forfeit’, and ‘weird.’

    • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      2 years ago

      I before e except after c, but only if it rhymes with ‘me’. I dare you to find an exception.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipEnglish
        91·
        2 years ago

        seize, caffeine, leisure

        Also a lot of plural words ending in -cy, like agencies, delicacies, or latencies.

          • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipEnglish
            2·
            2 years ago

            Most of the US dictionaries (MW, Collins, Am Heritage, etc) list the ei as rhyming with me as the first pronunciation. Might be different for you regionally or in other countries though.

    • TequilaMockingbird@kbin.social
      6·
      2 years ago

      That’s because it’s not taught correctly. It’s supposed to apply to words that have an “ee” sound from blended vowels, because those are the words that are confusing to remember whether the i or the e comes first. And even then there are exceptions (weird, seize, Keith). It was never meant to cover words with an “ay” sound like weigh or where the 2 vowels are pronounced separately (science, glacier, being).

      But it’s much more fun to pick words that “disprove” the rule for Internet points (even though they were never meant to be in scope).

      • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
        41·
        2 years ago

        The rule isn’t a very good one in either context.

        English is inconsistent on spelling. It just is. That’s the rule.

      • JackGreenEarth@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        That’s why the full rule that my English teacher grandmother taught me but surprisingly most people don’t seem to know is “I before e except after c, but only if it rhymes with ‘me’”