i before e rule

Unit of Energy · Post by **Unit of Energy** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 9:14 am

http://theboard.byu.edu/index.php?area=viewall&id=49547

I just found this question interesting. My mom came up with some additions so that the rule I always remember is "i before e except after c and when it says ay as in neighbor and weigh and in weird words like weird"

vorpal blade · Post by **vorpal blade** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 9:58 am

I'm surprised at how many exceptions there are.

Post by **bobtheenchantedone** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 10:30 am

Rules for the English language always have exceptions. Always. Even this rule has exceptions.

Unit of Energy · Post by **Unit of Energy** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:33 pm

The weird part of the rule my mom taught me was in order to help me remember how to spell weird. But I'm pretty sure she did not invent the when it says ay rule. Did anyone learn that part besides me? Just curious.

Post by **bobtheenchantedone** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:11 pm

I read it in one of those Amelia books. The journal ones. She always had trouble spelling 'weird.'

Giovanni Schwartz · Post by **Giovanni Schwartz** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 4:48 pm

I know that "Ay" rule.

Quiet Lamb · Post by **Quiet Lamb** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 3:33 am

Yep, I know the 'ay' rule, fairly common.

Tao · Post by **Tao** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:03 am

I must say that I was most relieved to note that the "when sounding like 'ay'" portion was not part of the question. This one took many more hours than I had anticipated as it was, and checking for pronunciation of each word would have likely been too much for me. The interesting thing that I noticed while slogging through all of the ei words was that there were very few that fell into the "after c" portion. I'd say it was just about 10% of the total, which means there were far more "cie" words than "cei" words.

Whistler · Post by **Whistler** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:50 pm

yeah, Tao, I was wondering how you researched this one, that is some major dedication there

Wisteria · Post by **Wisteria** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:52 am

I had an English teacher in junior high who used that whole statement with our class, Unit, including the "weird words like weird" bit.

Unit of Energy · Post by **Unit of Energy** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:32 pm

That makes me happy, because one of my teachers in high school thought that I was strange and had problems for the weird bit.

Tao · Post by **Tao** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 8:21 pm

Whistler wrote:yeah, Tao, I was wondering how you researched this one, that is some major dedication there

Thank you, though I don't know if dedication would be the word I would have used. Perhaps Bull-headedness would be closer. Basically, what I did was looked for "ei' in a searchable word database, then weeded out all of the "cei" words, then looked up the definitions. when I realized how many days that would take, I focused on any that I didn't recognize. The fun or interesting ones I linked, along with the ones that we all should know, but might not remember as an exception. I was a little surprised to see the apparent brevity of the finished product, I was expecting this one to be another mini-novel.