i thought the spelling rule was "I before E except after C"....?

Question

thats what all my teachers have told me, but now im realizing that many words have E before I. Like weigh and weird. are those just exceptions to the rule? im not like a spelling freak, i was just curious about it. thanks

Answer 1

the better mnemonic is:



i before e

except after c

but we live in a weird society



or



i before e

except after c

or when sounding like "a"

as in neighbor or weigh

Answer 2

The entire rhyme is as follows: "'I' before 'E', except after 'C', or when sounding like 'ay' as in neighbor or weigh." So actually, the "exception of weigh" that you mentioned is actually covered by the the rules of the old phrase. The word weird isn't technically applicable to the I-before-E rule, because of the syllabic pronunciation of the vowels. The I-before-E rule applies when I an e are combined in a one-syllable sound, either the "ee" or "ay" sound. The word weird, on the other hand, has a diphthong and is technically two syllables: "wEE--ird".

Answer 3

It's referring to words only with the letters "eic" in that order like in "receive" and many people don't know which letter comes first so someone came up with that rule. But it doesn't go with other words.

Answer 4

There are lots of exceptions--the ones you mention: "seize" and "heir" and "their"--



The rule works about 75% of the time. Give it a C !

Answer 5

Exceptions. Piece, bro.

Answer 6

Yea i've heard that too. We just recently had a conversation during English and my teacher says there is another part of it and she told us but i can't remember it.

Answer 7

"I before e, except after c" is a mnemonic device used to help many students remember how to spell certain words in the English language. It means that, in words where i and e fall together, the order is ie, except directly following c, when it is ei. For example:



ie in words like siege, friend

ei in words like ceiling, receive

However, in its short form the rule has many common exceptions, such as species, science, sufficient (where ie follows c) or seize, weird, sovereignty, vein, feisty, kaleidoscope and neighbor (where ei is not preceded by c). More exceptions are listed below. Various augmentations to the rhyme have been proposed to handle these exceptions.



[edit] Exceptions

This section lists exceptions to the basic form; many will not be exceptions to the augmented forms. The word oneiromancies (studies into the meaning of dreams) breaks the rule twice, in both ways. The words deficiencies, efficiencies, sufficiencies, zeitgeist and einsteinium break the rule twice in the same way.



Another mnemonic device that takes the form of a non-rhyming sentence has been used to help students remember a list of common exceptions to the rule: "Let neither financier inveigle the sheikh into seizing either species of weird leisure." This sentence contains both "ie after c" exceptions and "e before i" exceptions.





[edit] cie

Some groups of words have cie:



Inflections of words ending -cy (fancied, policies, etc.)

science and related words (conscience, prescient, etc.)

Other words ending -cient -ciency (ancient, efficiency, etc.)

Suffixes -ier or -iety after a root ending in -c (financier, glacier, society, etc.)



[edit] ei not preceded by c

Some groups of words have ei:



Chemical names ending in -ein or -eine (caffeine, casein, codeine, phenolphthalein, phthalein, protein, etc.)

Many proper names (Keira, Breidi, Keith, Leith, Neilla, Sheila, etc.)

Scottish English words (deil, deid, weill, etc.)

Prefixes de- or re- before words starting with i (deindustrialize, reignite, etc.)

Inflection -ing after verbs those ending in e which do not drop the e (being, seeing, swingeing, etc.)

Miscellaneous others: in the following lists, words are grouped by the sound corresponding to ei in the spelling. An asterisk* after a word indicates the pronunciation implied is one of several found. Most derived forms are omitted; for example, as well as seize, there exists disseize and seizure.



[eɪ]

these exceptions are excluded by the American version: beige, cleidoic, deign, dreidel, eight, feign, feint, freight, forfeit, geisha, gleization, gneiss, greige, greisen, heigh-ho*, heinous*, inveigle*, neigh, neighbo(u)r, obeisance*, peignoir*, reign, rein, seiche, seidel, seine, sheikh*, sleigh, surveillance, veil, vein, weigh

eir as [ɛɹ] (rhotic) or [ɛə(ɹ)] (non-rhotic)

these exceptions are excluded by the American version: heir, their

[i]

these exceptions are the only ones that slip through the strictest interpretation of the British version: either*, heinous*, inveigle*, keister, leisure*, monteith, neither*, obeisance*, seize, seizin, sheikh*, specie, teiid

[i] or [ɪ], depending on happy tensing

these exceptions may slip through the British version: species

eir as [ɪɹ] (rhotic) or [ɪə(ɹ)] (non-rhotic)

these exceptions may slip through the British version: weir, weird

[aɪ]

eider, either*, Einstein, einsteinium, feisty, Frankenstein, heigh-ho*, height, heist, kaleidoscope, leitmotiv, neither*, Rotweiller, seismic, stein, zeitgeist

[ɪ]

counterfeit, forfeit, surfeit

[ɪ] or [ə], depending on weak vowel merger

foreign, reveille*, sovereign

[ɛ]

heifer, leisure*, peignoir*

[æ]

reveille*

e and i in separate segments

albeit, atheism, deify, deity, onomatopoeia



Don't ya just love the English Language? LOL