Talk:I before E except after C

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Contents 1 Correction 2 Another exception 3 Better rule 4 Not Funny 5 achievement removed 6 Exception mnemonic 7 New line 8 Memonics and citations 9 An other variant, perhaps 10 And another variant 11 Swingeing 12 List 13 Family Guy 14 The limited vocabulary of a child?

[edit] Correction

Rhymes aside, the rule is:

"Where you know that a given word is pronounced /i:/ or /ɪ/ and you are not sure whether it is spelt with ie or ei, the following rules apply. The digraph ei usually represents /eɪ/ or /aɪ/, so ie is your best bet except after a c — which requires ie in forms of words in -y (fancies, legacies...) and ei in other positions (ceiling, receipt...) — and in the words seize, weird, oneiromancy and a few others if dialectal pronunciations are taken into account."

— Chameleon 13:13, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another exception

their, I am not sure where it would go on the main page because I don't know what all those funky letter sound things mean. --70.7.189.110 14:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Better rule

"I before E, except for the exceptions" – Ronan Pitterman 10:18, 2 September 2006

LOL "Pitterman, that was funny." – WikiGuest 19:53, 14 November 2006

[edit] Not Funny

I am editing the claim of humourous effect in the Canadian Hyundai commercial. It is not funny. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.114.132.151 (talk • contribs) 12:51, 30 October 2006

[edit] achievement removed

I removed 'achievement' since the 'ie' comes after h, not c (it's also not listed with the exceptions). JAL 10:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Exception mnemonic

I learned the rule with the following addendum to cover the exceptions:

“Neither leisured foreigner seized the weird height.”

A search on Google shows numerous hits for pages with this sentence. —MJBurrage • TALK • 23:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New line

I came up with this added a line a few years ago that covers some of the exceptions most commonly mixed up:

   i before e
   except after c
   or when sounding like a
   as in neighbor and weigh 
   or if you're plain weird or just foreign

I don't know if it should be added or not. I'll leave that up to those who deal with this page more often.

--MathStuf 03:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Memonics and citations

People have gone citation-happy around here lately. If you know of a mnemonic that can help people and add it, that's not WP:OR, that's original composition, which is what Wikipedia is all about. What you can not do, according to WP:OR, is claim that it's part of the original mnemonic that is widely known and easily citable.

Imagine if I was writing an article about haikus, and I said Haikus have a 5-7-5 syllable structure, such as "Wikipedians / who go citation crazy / need to find some help." It's a fact that that haiku has the correct structure. I don't need to cite the poem, as I composed it. It's not original research, as it isn't an interpretation of what a haiku is; I'm not claiming it's a good haiku (and it most certainly isn't); I'm not claiming that it's a published or well-known poem.

I wish people would pour their citation-tagging efforts into the claims made in historical articles rather than nit-picking and putting citations on things that don't need to be looked up to be verified. If it's a haiku (or a mnemonic) then it is one, and you don't need a publishable source to verify that it is that thing. 154.20.48.244 07:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Original Research is not the only exclusion criterion. Another criterion is WP:NOTABILITY. If you make up a mnemonic it is not notable. Giving examples of mnemonics is appropriate in the mnemonic article, as giving examples of haiku is in the haiku article (leaving aside the separate question of when a made-up example is appropriate). But making up a mnemonic in this article is as inappropriate as making up a haiku (write i before e / works for most words in English / except after c). See also WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information:

"Instruction manuals. While Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, Wikipedia articles should not include instructions or advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes."

A mnemonic is a species of "how-to", unless it is notable in its own right (as, for example, "i before e except after c" is). Since you found the citation tag confusing, I have deleted all mnemonics and will continue to do so unless proof of notability is provided via a citation. jnestorius^(talk) 17:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Once again, process trumps content. Congratulations on making the article less useful to someone trying to pass a spelling test. Why is it WP:IAR seems to be the only rule people are willing to ignore?

The spirit of the "Instruction manuals" section is clearly to prevent things like an article on a video game from containing a 300kb complete walkthrough of the game, not a one-line mnemonic. Those who ignore WP:IAR however, seem to lack the grasp on subtlety and common sense that is required to see that. 154.20.48.244 23:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

If you disagree with the prohibition on instruction manuals, take it up at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not. If you want to add something useful for a spelling test, add it at Wikibooks (perhaps in b:en:English/Spelling) and by all means cross-link your work from this article. Whether an incomplete list of exceptions is actually helpful is another question; my common sense does not seem to agree with yours on this. jnestorius^(talk) 14:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An other variant, perhaps

I've never heard the "or when sounding like a, as in neighbor and weigh" bit before. My mom always recited it "i before e, except after c, except in words, like receive". Am I the only one to have ever head this variant? Gus 08:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] And another variant

The one I was taught is:

"I before e except after c and only be if it rhymes with me."

The other variants seems to dance around the idea of listing ALL the exceptions or giving examples so I thought I'd add this one, which seems to work relatively well save with words such as seize or species; but it works with the other examples listed in the introduction - science, sufficient, weird, vein. Trimethylxanthine 20:26, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Swingeing

This exclusively British word does not seem significant enough to be listed as an example. I feel it should be included in "etc." along with other obscure words rarely used. If it were in a list of examples, it would be fine, but in its current situation, I feel it is unnecessary. Clearly someone feels otherwise, as they reverted my change, and I would like him to explain himself. Alexandre-Jérôme 05:36, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List

I wish this page had a full list of the exceptions. Chubbles 21:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

That's not practicable. A really complete list would run to tens of thousands of words. (The "rule" is of highly dubious merit; there are almost as many words that don't follow it as there are words that do.) Listing the major categories of exceptions will have to be good enough. --Jonadab, 2007 Nov 12.

[edit] Family Guy

Doesn't Peter Griffin mention this rule in some episode of Family Guy or am I mistaken? --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 22:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The limited vocabulary of a child?

I've expunged this:

It should be noted, however, that the rhyme is principally intended to help children learn to spell. Given the limited vocabulary of a child, the number of exceptions is much smaller than might be noted by a literate adult.

"It should be noted" is among phrases to avoid; in any case it is noted by the word "students" in the first sentence. As to whether the exceptions are few or many, that seems to be WP:OR and possibly WP:POV. jnestorius^(talk) 23:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC)