Talk:I before E except after C

message: Friends this is not the entire rhyming rule, and wikipedia should be accurate and reliable. The full rule is: "I before E, except after C or when sounded as A, as in neighbor and weigh.." This is how I learned it in school, and can be googled to find it as well. When you use the whole rhyming rule there are very very few exceptions. Yes some, but extremely few. Peace.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.234.189.43 (talk) 16:03, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: There are a number of variants. My favourite is, "To make the sound 'ee', I before E except after C." which has precisely 3 English exceptions, 'weird', 'seize' and 'foreign' plus derived forms. All other exceptions are either foreign words that have been imported with their original spelling or are proper names. Please note that words such as 'specie' are not exceptions. (The rhyme says ie except after c. It does not say ei after c.) Unfortunately there are too many people with a vested interest (either comedic or scholarly reputation) to allow the real rhyme, correctly read, to be allowed to stand. OrewaTel (talk) 10:03, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

message: I before e, except after c is a lie. Don't listen to anyone. What happened to the word efficiency? Isn't that supposed to ba an e, then and I? even after a long dicussion I fucked up
In the Examples I would Like to point out that "Ceilidh" is not an English word it is a Gaelic word meaning "informal gathering" much like a gathering of friends to sing music and have fun. but still it is not an english word, if this is a mnemonic guidline for english dont give Gaelic words as Examples!!!!!!  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:CA:4300:50B0:8D75:A654:1097:8755 (talk) 09:21, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Correction

message: 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)
replies: text: Have you read the article? See the strictest exceptions. jnestorius(talk) 12:08, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Other Exceptions

message: "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
"I before E, except after C or if it starts with H or ends in N G." or actually "I before E or just check in the dictionary" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.221.15.212 (talk) 19:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Better rule

message: 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)
thread_title: ''achievement'' removed

message: 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)
thread_title: Exception mnemonic

message: 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)
thread_title: An other variant, perhaps

message: 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)
thread_title:  Swingeing 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Family Guy 

message: I think it is a mistake to list all English words that represent nothing more than direct adoption from a non-English language. Or I think it should be pointed out that these are not English exceptions, but rather direct adoptions from the original French (e.g. peignoir, reveille), or German (e.g. Einstein, einsteinium, Frankenstein, Rotweiller, stein, zeitgeist, leitmotiv). -Thibbs (talk) 19:05, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: English is a very compositted language so of course exceptions will come from other languages but so will rule followers --71.131.27.5 (talk) 03:42, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

text: I believe that "ceilidh" would count among these cases too, unless it's a mis-spelling in the first paragraph. If it really is "ceilidh", this word wouldn't be considered english strictly speaking, but rather celtic / gaelic. Doing some googling I came to find out that it's an irish dance. --Lwangaman (talk) 14:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Especially since this is apparently an Irish term, and Irish spelling compared to English is horribly counterintuitive. Having never heard of this before, I'm wondering whether there's a specific reason it's included in the list. Is this allegedly in the non-Gaelic vernacular? 205.175.240.244 (talk) 15:25, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ceilidh is in lots of English dictionaries.  It is in the list since there are very few words with -cei- and the others listed have a different vowel.  As the article says, " Few common words have the cei spelling handled by the rule".  Of course one could (re-)interpret the basic rule to exclude loanwords; there are cited sources which exclude Scots words, but others which implicitly include at least some loanwords. jnestorius(talk) 13:04, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Foreign words

message: http://jwbookarchive.posterous.com/i-before-e-accept-after-c-with-a-few-exceptio  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.190.179 (talk) 21:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  in pop culture 

message: The word "reinsure" should not be considered as an example in the case of this rule, as it is made up of the word "insure" with the prefix "re-", and the i and e are broken up into two syllables. Will (talk) 09:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reinsure 

message: "I before E except after C, or when it does not sound like EE"
Like in "their", "feisty", "height", "Einstein", or "neighbor" and "weigh".  It is not just A that is an exception.  "Science" and "Deity" have "ie" producing two distinct syllables rather than "ee", and "either" is actually supposed to be pronounced with a long I.  Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 19:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Even better rule 

message: The version I learned as a child (circa 1960) was:
  I before E, except after C, and other weird cases.
Brevity has value, sometimes.
83.104.133.97 (talk) 13:55, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another ditty 

message: I was hoping in the History section to find an explanation for why this pattern exists (to the extent that it does), maybe in terms of phonemes that were originally different converging, or the relative frequencies of diphthongs in words with Latin versus other roots, but didn't find anything like that. I don't suppose anyone is in a position to take a stab at it? Willhsmit (talk) 01:14, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a bit, which only related to the -ee- sound. jnestorius(talk) 14:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical explanation? 

message: it reads in its headline: "INDIAN HILLS COMMUNITY CENTER"
and in its body: "I BEFORE E EXCEPT AFTER C DISPROVED BY SCIENCE"
this probably contributes the word "science" as an exception to the rule.
image reference to the quote, 
general reference and backgrounder --Alexander.stohr (talk) 16:29, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously that sign is a joke.  The word "science" doesn't contain the digraph "ie" or "ei" at all – it contains the separately pronounced letters "i" and "e". — Smjg (talk) 07:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  found an image of sign placed near a road 

message: Just looked at it. Alfa-ketosav (talk) 03:16, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: What is a "double breaker?" — Smjg (talk) 07:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Words that break both the "I before E" part and the "except after C" part' jnestorius(talk) 00:33, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The simplest form of the saying is "I before E except after C." Read that carefully. What it actually says is that if there is no 'C' then you place 'I' before 'E'. But if there is a 'C' then the rule does not apply. Nowhere does it say that if there is a preceding 'C' then the double vowel should be 'EI'. That is just sloppy illogical thinking. Consequently the double breakers actually conform to the rule. OrewaTel (talk) 06:27, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The double breakers are mostly plurals of words ending in cy.