Greetings, word nerds! We’re going to become spelling nerds today, because the time has come to set the world straight!
I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.” It’s catchy, isn’t it? And it’s handy little mnemonic for words like receive, deceive, believe, and relieve. But I’m equally sure you’ve seen people posting memes pointing out how WEIRD this rule is. (See what I did there?) Memes like this one:
The popular British TV show QI has even discussed the rule on one of its episodes, stating that the rule is no longer taught in schools because there are so many more exceptions than there are words that follow this rule. Nine hundred and twenty-three exceptions, to be precise. In a list that presumably looks something like this:
No, I don’t expect you to read that whole list. But I have to tell you, every time I see things like this, my inner spelling nerd curls up in a fœtal ball while it tries to cope with the gross misapplication of a rule that actually has far fewer exceptions than any of these sources claim. All it takes is a little bit of logic—and the other half of the saying.
You see, the rule isn’t just “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.” The full rule is, “When the sound is ‘ee’, it’s ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.” Or some people may have been taught the rhyme, “It’s ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’, or when the sound is ‘ay’ like in ‘neighbour’ or ‘weigh’.” The latter rhyme’s not bad, but the former gets to the heart of the issue.
As a homeschooling mum, I was fortunate (read: I spent hours and hours researching) to discover an absolutely brilliant spelling program called All About Spelling, which teaches spelling in a logical progression. Yes, you read that correctly. English spelling can be taught in a logical progression! And I would be lying by omission if I didn’t tell you that some of what I’m going to share here, I’ve picked up from teaching my children using this program.
The 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' rule is much maligned, but what's the real story?
First of all, I’m not going to tell you that English isn’t full of fascinating inconsistencies. What language that’s grown out of French, Germanic, Latin, Greek, and who-knows-what-other influences and undergone the Great Vowel Shift wouldn’t be? But a few simple spelling conventions that we all know are all it takes to explain many of these so-called “rule-breakers.”
All About Spelling Program
1. WORDS ENDING IN “CY”
You all would have learned in school that when you form the plural of a word ending in “y”, you change the “y” to “i” and add “es”. This “change the ‘y’ to ‘i'” rule also applies to other suffixes (endings) that begin with vowels, such as “ed”, “er”, and “est”. Hence, you get the following:
mercy → mercies
fancy → fancied → fancier → fanciest
2. WORDS ENDING IN “E”
Another rule you learn in school is “drop the ‘e’, add ‘ing’.” Again, the drop the “e” rule extends to other vowel suffixes such as “ism”, “ist”, although these are much less frequent than “ing”. The vast majority of words this rule is applied to end with silent “e”, but there are a few exceptions, either because the “e” is doubled or because removing the “e” could be confusing:
agree → agreeing
singe → singeing
age → ageist → ageism
3. COMPOUND AND HYPHENATED WORDS
You know those words made up of two smaller words, like “into”? They’ve been bundled in as rule-breakers. And yes, those hyphenated words are also included in that very long list above (without hyphens)!
here+in → herein
drivein → drive-in
tongueincheek → tongue-in-cheek
4. WORDS BEGINNING WITH “I” WHICH HAVE A PREFIX
“Re” is a very popular prefix in the English language, and sometimes it’s attached to words beginning with “i”. But hey, if it helps bump up the number of “rule-breakers”…
re+inforce → reinforce
re+install → reinstall
re+integrate → reintegrate
4. WORDS WHERE “I” AND “E” ARE SOUNDED SEPARATELY
These are words where “i” and “e” are adjacent to one another but are not functioning as a single sound. In these words, there is usually a syllable break between the two letters.
atheist = ath⋅e⋅ist
science = sci⋅ence
albeit = al⋅be⋅it
It’s clear these words aren’t rule-breakers; they simply follow different rules—basic ones that every school child should learn. So let’s see how that list is looking now.
(Red lines are crossing out words that fall under one of the five categories above, and green lines are crossing out words that have been included despite following the “‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c'” rule.)
And what about all the other words, you ask? Well, that’s for next week. 😉 See you then!
Isn’t the English language fun? Especially when you have to figure out how to spell words! Thanks for an entertaining post!
The English language is lots of fun. Just maybe not when you’re trying to learn it as an adult. Lol.
deceit does not break the rule
your list of 925 words had one mistake – disappointing.
jk i didn’t even read the whole thing i just randomly stumbled upon this