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" he dismantles the commonly held English spelling mantra ”I before E except after C.” It’s used to help people remember how to spell words like “piece,” but, F
by gweinberg 6y ago
" he dismantles the commonly held English spelling mantra ”I before E except after C.” It’s used to help people remember how to spell words like “piece,” but, Forsyth says, there are only 44 words that follow the rule, and 923 that don’t. His prime examples? “Their,” “being,” and “eight.”"
But of course, the rule is "i before e except after c or when sounded like a, as in neighbor and weigh".
You still have exceptions like seize and weird (and being) but I think that's all among common words.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> You still have exceptions like seize and weird (and being) but I think that's all among common words. My favorite demonstation of the silliness of the rule: ‘i’ before ‘e’ except when your foreign neighbour Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. Weird.
- Izkata 6y agoThe rule is also meant for words where it's not clear because the two letters make one sound, not the ones where the "e" and "i" make distinct sounds, so that drops out another good chunk of these exceptions.