d Romance aswingers+torrent+720pdsearchC Szh r Szh esearch' Karinannacheung Karinannacheung 9search4 Survey of English Spelling describes the rule as "peculiar":[1]d Romance aswingers+torrent+720pdsearchC Szh r Szh esearch' Karinannacheung Karinannacheung 9search4 Survey of English Spelling describes the rule as "peculiar":[1]
As to the usefulness of the rule, he says:[15]
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):
In the Appendix, after a list of nine "useful spelling guidelines", there is a note:
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]
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.
Some large groups of words have cie:
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]
Many words have ei not preceded by c. Some groups are:
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.