Hey, remember that grammar rule "I" before "E" except after "C"?

I was just coming to the realization that this rule does not always work. I wonder if any of you figured this out before I did? There are words where this does not apply and yet it was always taught to me in grade school. I before E except after C.

Leisure. Seizure. Feisty. Meister. Seismic. Their. Weird.

I am sure there are many more.

So, let's play a game and see how many of these words we can find that don't apply.

I guess I just thought it might be fun to do something lighthearted today. Of course, someone will probably come and try to ruin the fun by being obnoxious, but guess what, knock yourself out, my parade will still continue down the easy path today.

I have had so much drama and turmoil to deal with lately, I just wanted something simple, so here it is, participate or don't.

a reply to: searcherfortruth
I was taught a modified version;
"I before e except after C-
when the sound is 'ee'".
That might cover some of your exceptions.

P.S. Two of your examples are borrowed from German and one from French. They will have their own rules.

If we wanted a language that perfectly conformed to its own rules, we would need to be more like the Spanish and keep an actual language police or governing body whose job it is to vet new words and make sure they conform to the standards of the langugae.

Instead we have English which freely adopts words from other languages, sometimes Anglicizing them, sometimes not, and adapts them to our grammar structures. Heck, we even have major dictionary companies making it a "thing" to openly and proudly inject themost popular pop-culture words of the year (what used to be called slang) into their publication each year making them official words.

You can do that and have a rule-conforming language.

a reply to: searcherfortruth

Nothing makes me more bonkers than the i before e rule! I hate it; there are more exceptions to it than there are times when its true! I've just about concluded anymore spellning just doesnt matter! There was a fantastic web story about hows it possible that a person can rwite a paragraf with almost evry word mispeled and the readers still "get it".

Unfortunately, my brain is hard wired to correctness and as a result I spend have my time correcting what I type every time a post something on ATS!

Thanks for bringing this up; between this OP and the valium and the miller lite, I'm starting to calm down.

a reply to: searcherfortruth

You must not have realized that the mnemonic has more to it. The rhyme itself explains that there are exceptions to the rule. It goes:

I before E,
except after C
Or when sounded as A,
as in neighbor and weigh.
(And “weird” is just weird.)

The "rule" is meant, because most words do follow the first part of the rhyme, to help people remember how to spell those particular word sounds. So they give the exceptions at the end, which pretty much leaves no reason for anyone to misspell any words with that particular letter combo.😉

Of course, I'm sure there is at least one word that doesn't fit the reminder out there. Names might be tricky, for sure.

a reply to: searcherfortruth

I remember it always being more of a guideline than a rule.

a reply to: searcherfortruth

Learn English oh and it's "I before E EXCEPT after C" dead give away there. Nice try.

I Member the I before E rule!

There are several species of words, like “science,” that are sufficient to prove that “All rules must be broken”!

It would be a heinous miscarriage to lay this brakeage at the feet of foreign words! At your leisure feel free to research this breech. A surfeit of lawbreakers must exist!

i thought this was a Mandela effect thread in disguise...

.

remember being taught vowels?
in the early 80's it was
a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y

never did quite get that one

Never start a sentence with 'And'. Remember that?

"And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England's mountains green?"

Don't assume my grammar!

Learned this in third grade.

originally posted by: CJCrawley
Never start a sentence with 'And'. Remember that?

"And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England's mountains green?"

I learned it as something that should be avoided. It's more of a guideline. If you find that you are starting every other sentence in a paragraph with And, then you can likely create a compound sentence somewhere or just remove the And.

But then again, you quoted a poem, and those are a special subset of what you can and cannot do with your grammar.

originally posted by: odzeandennz
i thought this was a Mandela effect thread in disguise...

.

It was yesterday, what the hell is going on here!

"Hey, remember that grammar rule "I" before "E" except after "C"?"

No I don't, and I don't care. You must be wicked bored? Dude, go grab three fingers of Wild Turkey 101 will ya? Take a beer chaser too! Repeat ad lib! Explore the herbal kingdom. Live a little. What are you a librarian?

a reply to: searcherfortruth

In English, there are exceptions to every rule.

originally posted by: searcherfortruth
I was just coming to the realization that this rule does not always work. I wonder if any of you figured this out before I did? There are words where this does not apply and yet it was always taught to me in grade school. I before E except after C.

Leisure. Seizure. Feisty. Meister. Seismic. Their. Weird.

I am sure there are many more.

So, let's play a game and see how many of these words we can find that don't apply.

I guess I just thought it might be fun to do something lighthearted today. Of course, someone will probably come and try to ruin the fun by being obnoxious, but guess what, knock yourself out, my parade will still continue down the easy path today.

I have had so much drama and turmoil to deal with lately, I just wanted something simple, so here it is, participate or don't.

I after E when used after C...

Couple of my pet peeves:

Accents are rarely used any more making it difficult to know how to pronounce some words and, especially, names. Zoe, for example.

The spellings of adopted foreign words (or place names) are not anglicised making them virtually impossible to pronounce unless you've heard them on the news.

Just substituting a Y for a J would make a big difference. Sarajevo - any reason that couldn't be Sarayevo? I'm not trying to be ignorant but surely it makes sense to decide on spellings that will work in English rather than just copying the original spelling?

a reply to: ketsuko

Consarn it - foiled by a proofreader!

I learned it as something that should be avoided. It's more of a guideline.

Hmm. Good advice. I learned it as an absolute law; but then, I don't suppose primary school teachers in 1960s England were expert in the finer points of grammar.

you quoted a poem, and those are a special subset of what you can and cannot do with your grammar.

Indeed. I quoted a poem, quite a well known one, to offer at least one exception to the rule. There are loads of other examples in prose but I couldn't think of a well known one.