I before E except after C

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

"I before E, except after C" is a mnemonic rule of thumb for English spelling. If one is unsure whether a word is spelled with the sequence ei or ie, the rhyme suggests that the correct order is ie unless the preceding letter is c or the combination is being pronounced as an 'A' (that is, like the name of the letter 'A' in English: /eɪ/), in which case it is spelled ei. For example:

• ie in believe, fierce, collie, die, friend
• ei after c in deceive, ceiling, receipt, ceilidh
• ei sounds like an 'A' as in vein,

The rule is very well known; Edward Carney calls it "this supreme, and for many people solitary, spelling rule".^[1] However, its short form as above has many common exceptions; for example:

• ie after c: ancient, species, science, sufficient, society
• ei not preceded by c: seize, weird, eider, either, height, foreign, leisure, counterfeit, forfeit, neither, atheist, their, queueing, Keith, reinsure, reika

More exceptions are listed below.

The proportion of exceptions can be reduced by restricting application of the rule based on the sound represented by the spelling. Two common restrictions are:

• excluding cases where the spelling represents the "long a" sound (the lexical sets of FACE and perhaps SQUARE)
• including only cases where the spelling represents the "long e" sound (the lexical sets of FLEECE and perhaps NEAR and happY)

Some authorities deprecate the rule as having too many exceptions to be worth learning.

Contents 1 History 2 Modern views 3 Exceptions 3.1 cie 3.2 ei not preceded by c 3.2.1 ei exceptions by sound 4 Allusions 5 References

History

The mnemonic (in its short form) is found as early as 1866, as a footnote in Manual of English Spelling,^[2] edited by schools inspector James Stuart Laurie from the work of a Tavistock schoolmaster named Marshall.^[3] Michael Quinion surmises the rhyme was already established before this date.^[4] An 1834 manual states a similar rule in prose;^[5] others in 1855 and 1862 use different rhymes.^[6][7] Many textbooks from the 1870s on use the same rhyme as Laurie's book.^[4]

The restriction to the "long e" sound is explicitly made in the 1855 and 1862 books, and applied to the "i before e except after c" rhyme in an 1871 manual.^[8] Mark Wainwright's FAQ posting on the alt.usage.english newsgroup characterises this restricted version as British.^[9] The restriction may be implicit, or may be explicitly included as an extra line such as "when the sound is e" placed before^[9] or after^[10] the main part of the rhyme.

A longer form excluding the "long a" sound is found in Rule 37 of Ebenezer Cobham Brewer's 1880 Rules for English Spelling, along with a list of the "chief exceptions":^[11]

The following rhymes contain the substance of the last three rules : —

i before e,

Except after c,

Or when sounded as "a,"

As in neighbor and weigh.

"Dr Brewer" is credited as the author by subsequent writers quoting this form of the rhyme,^[12][13][14] which became common in American schools.^[4]

A Dictionary of Modern English Usage has an entry "i before e except after c". Henry Watson Fowler's original 1926 edition called the rule "very useful", restricting it to words with the "long e" sound, stating further that "words in which that sound is not invariable, as either, neither, inveigle, do not come under it", and listing exceptions. The entry was retained in Ernest Gowers's 1965 revision. Robert Burchfield rewrote it for the 1996 edition, stating 'the rule can helpfully be extended "except when the word is pronounced with /eɪ/"', and giving a longer list of exceptions, including words excluded from Fowler's interpretation.

Modern views

Edward Carney's 1994 Survey of English Spelling describes the rule as "peculiar":^[1]

Its practical use is ... simply deciding between two correspondences for /iː/ that are a visual metathesis of each other. It is not a general graphotactic rule applicable to other phonemes. So, although seize and heinous (if you pronounce it with /iː/ rather than /eɪ/) are exceptions, heifer, leisure with /e/≡<ei> or rein, vein with /eɪ/≡<ei> are not exceptions; <ie> is not a usual spelling of /e/ or /eɪ/.

As to the usefulness of the rule, he says:^[15]

Such rules are warnings against common pitfalls for the unwary. Nevertheless, selection among competing correspondences has never been, and could never be, covered by such aids to memory.

The converse of the "except after c" part is Carney's spelling-to-sound rule E.16: in the sequence <cei>, the <ei> is pronounced /iː/.^[16] In Carney's test wordlist, all eight words with <cei> conform to this rule, which he thus describes as being a "marginal" rule with an "efficiency" of 100%.^[16] Rarer loanwords not in the wordlist may not conform; e.g. the Gaelic word ceilidh is pronounced /keɪliː/.

Mark Wainwright's FAQ posting interprets the rule as applying only to the FLEECE vowel, not the NEAR vowel; he regards it as useful if "a little common sense" is used for the exceptions.^[9] The FAQ includes a 1996 response to Wainwright by an American, listing variations on the rule and their exceptions, contending that even the restricted version has too many exceptions, and concluding "Instead of trying to defend the 'rule' or 'guideline', "'i' before 'e' except after 'c'", why don't we all just agree that it is dumb and useless, and be content just to laugh at it?"^[17]

Kory Stamper of Merriam-Webster has said the neighbor-and-weigh version is "chocked with tons of exceptions", listing several types.^[18] On Language Log in 2006, Mark Liberman suggested that the alternative "i before e, no matter what" was more reliable than the basic rule.^[19] On the same blog in 2009, Geoff Pullum wrote, 'The rule is always taught, by anyone who knows what they are doing, as "i before e except after c when the sound is 'ee'."'^[10]

The 2009 edition of Support for Spelling, by the English Department for Education,^[20] suggests an "Extension activity" for Year Five (nine-year-olds):

• Children investigate the rule i before e except after c. Does this always apply? What sound does ie make in these words?

In the Appendix, after a list of nine "useful spelling guidelines", there is a note:

• The i before e except after c rule is not worth teaching. It applies only to words in which the ie or ei stands for a clear /ee/ sound and unless this is known, words such as sufficient, veil and their look like exceptions. There are so few words where the ei spelling for the /ee/ sound follows the letter c that it is easier to learn the specific words: receive, conceive, deceive (+ the related words receipt, conceit, deceit), perceive and ceiling.

There were widespread media reports of this recommendation, which generated some controversy.^[4][10]

The Oxford Dictionaries website of Oxford University Press states "The rule only applies when the sound represented is ‘ee’, though. It doesn’t apply to words like science or efficient, in which the –ie- combination does follow the letter c but isn’t pronounced ‘ee’."^[21]

Exceptions

The following sections list exceptions to the basic form; many will not be exceptions to the augmented forms.

Words which break each half of the rule include cheiromancies, cleidomancies, eigenfrequencies, obeisancies, and oneiromancies.

cie

Some large groups of words have cie:

• Inflections of words ending -cy (fancied, policies, etc.) These are exceptions to the "long e" restriction for those with happy tensing accents, who pronounce the -cies/-cied endings [siz]/[sid] rather than [sɪz]/[sɪd].
• Suffixes -ier or -iety after a root ending in -c(e) (financier, glacier, society, etc.), or after a root ending in -cy, to make a comparison from an adjective (e.g., bouncier), or a noun from a verb (e.g., fancier -- one who fancies)
• species and specie
• words ending -cient, -cience, and -ciency, including:
  • words derived from the Latin verb ficio: pro-/suf-/de-/efficient and their inflections. Note: deficiencies, efficiencies, sufficiencies, proficiencies have cie twice each.
  • science and related words and inflections (conscience, prescient, etc.)
  • ancient

Few common words have the cei spelling handled by the rule: verbs ending -ceive and their derivatives (perceive, deceit, transceiver, receipts, etc.), and ceiling. The BBC trivia show QI claimed there were 923 words spelled cie, 21 times the number of words which conform to the rule's stated exception by being written with cei.^[22] These figures were generated by a QI fan from a Scrabble wordlist.^[23]

ei not preceded by c

Many words have ei not preceded by c. Some groups are:

• the "silent g" words: neigh, neighbor, sleigh, sleight, weigh, weight, height, eight, freight, inveigh, plus the French loanwords reign (and its derivatives foreign, sovereign), deign, feign
• Many proper names, often because they are adopted from other languages; Carney says "As one might expect of any rule, there are likely to be even more exceptions in names, many of which are Scottish":^[24]
  • forenames and surnames Keith, Neil, Sheila, Stein, etc.
  • placenames Leith, Keighley, Rheims, Raleigh, etc.
  • Eid in the names of Muslim holidays (Eid ul-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, etc.)
  • yet more proper names taken from other languages, e.g: Rotweiller, Cassiopeia
• Prefixes de- or re- before words starting with i (deindustrialize, reignite, etc.)
• Chemical names ending in -ein or -eine (caffeine, casein, codeine, phthalein, protein, etc.) Here -ein(e) was originally pronounced /iː.ɪn/
• yet other loanwords apart from the proper names, e.g., abseil, dreidel, kaleidoscope, stein, leitmotiv (German), reveille, nonpareil, peignoir (French), geisha (Japanese), sheikh (Arabic)
• Inflection -ing of those verbs with roots ending in e which do not drop the e (being, seeing, swingeing, etc.)
• other /eɪ/ FACE sounding words: veil (and derivatives unveil, surveil, etc), vein, rein, heinous, beige, feint, skein, inveigle, obeisance
• Scottish English words (deil, deid, weill, etc.)

The larger categories, above, inform the stricter forms of the I before E rule: excluding all those with the /eɪ/ FACE sound, or excluding anything that does NOT have the /iː/ FLEECE sound. With either of these additional restrictions, the I before E rule has far fewer exceptions. Even with the strictest form, however, miscellaneous words still break the rule, and some even fall outside of this lengthy list of categories. Some of these exceptions are listed below.

ei exceptions by sound

In the list which follows, most derived forms are omitted; for example, as well as seize, there exist disseize and seizure. Words are grouped by the phonemes (sounds) corresponding to ei or eir in the spelling; each phoneme each represented phonetically as at Wikipedia:IPA for English and, where applicable, by the keyword in John C. Wells' lexical sets.

An asterisk* after a word indicates the pronunciation implied is one of several found. Some have an /iː/ variant more common in America than Britain (e.g. sheikh, leisure, either have /eɪ/, /ɛ/, /aɪ/ respectively). In these cases, the British pronunciation is a corollary of the British "long e" rule (i.e., when spelt ei, the pronunciation cannot be /iː/).

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

/eɪ/ FACE

these exceptions are excluded by the American version: abseil, beige, cleidoic, deign, dreidel, eight, feign, feint, freight, geisha, gleization, greige, greisen, heigh-ho*, heinous*, inveigh, inveigle*, neigh, neighbo(u)r, nonpareil*, obeisance*, peignoir*, reign, rein, seiche, seidel, seine, sheikh*, skein, sleigh, surveillance, veil, vein, weigh. (This sound is never spelled ie,^[25] except perhaps in lingerie).

/ɛər/ SQUARE

these exceptions are excluded by the American version: heir, their. (This sound is never spelled ier)

/iː/ FLEECE

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*, teiid (see also the chemical names such as caffeine listed above).

/ɪər/ NEAR

these exceptions may slip through the British version: weir, weird. (This sound may also be spelled ier, as in pierce.)

/aɪ/ PRICE

eider, either*, einsteinium, feisty, gneiss, heigh-ho*, height, heist, kaleidoscope, leitmotiv, neither*, Rotweiller, seismic, seismograph, stein, zeitgeist. This sound may also be spelled ie, but only at the end of a morpheme as in die, pie, lie, fie, cried.^[26]

/ɨ/ (see weak vowel merger)

counterfeit, foreign, forfeit, reveille*, sovereign, surfeit

/ɛ/ DRESS

heifer, leisure*, nonpareil*, peignoir*. (This sound may also be spelled ie, as in friend.)

/æ/ TRAP

reveille*

e and i in separate segments

albeit, atheism, deify, deity, herein, onomatopoeia

Allusions

The rhyme is mentioned in several films and TV episodes about spelling bees, including A Boy Named Charlie Brown, The Simpsons episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can", and an episode of Arthur.

I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways To Remember Stuff was a miscellany released in the UK for the Christmas 2007 "stocking filler" market,^[27] which sold well.^[28]

"I Before E Except After C" is a song on Yazoo's 1982 album Upstairs at Eric's. The Jackson 5's 1970 hit "ABC" has the lyric "I before E except after C". "I before E except after C" was a 1963 episode of the TV series East Side/West Side.

I Before E is the name of both a short-story collection by Sam Kieth and a music album by Carissa's Wierd, in each case alluding to the unusual spelling of the creator's name.

Until the 1930s, Pierce City, Missouri was named "Peirce City", after Andrew Peirce. A 1982 attempt to revert to the original spelling was rejected by the United States Census Bureau.^[29]

References

• Carney, Edward (1994). A survey of English spelling. Psychology Press. ISBN 9780415092708. http://books.google.com/books?id=sceZ5XcqSfIC. Retrieved 25 February 2011.