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i before e, except after c ?
Many words don’t conform to the rule:
sufficient
veil
their
Apparently, there’s a long continuation of the poem, I just don’t know it. If anyone does, feel free to post it.
also:
species, science, sufficient, ancient, society, seize, weird, atheist, weight, sovereignty, foreign, feign, height, freize, vein, feisty, neigh, kaleidoscope, seive, weigh, being, sleight, and neighbor. There are many others.
In June 2009, the British government advised primary school teachers to stop teaching the rule.
“Or when sounded as ‘a’ as in neighbor and weigh”
I before E except after C and any other time we decide to place the E before I. There are so many exceptions to this “rule” that it isnt a rule.
Jphone: this rule is actually quite accurate. I b4 e except after c or when sounding as A.
Most words do comply to this rule.
But english is a crazy language nontheless. Very complicated.
Jphone: this rule is actually quite accurate. I b4 e except after c or when sounding as A.
species,
science,
sufficient,
ancient,
society,
seize,
weird,
atheist,
sovereignty,
foreign,
height,
freize,
feisty,
kaleidoscope
seive,
being,
sleight,
their,
sufficient,
heir.
These are just the ones I thought of after a few minutes.
I agree the rule has a certain utility to it, I wouldn’t say though that it is: “quite accurate”
Actually the word “sieve” does conform to the rule. I am not familiar with the word “seive” though.
actually seive is a very common word.
definition: seive: the most common misspelling of the word sieve
I always learned it as I before E when sounds like long E except after C
I learned it as I before E except, usually, after C and when E is before I
My version of the rule doesn’t seem to work for seize, weird, and species (the last makes sense since it is a plural word ending in ‘ies’ even though there is no singular form of the word).
Well, mod: weird does havethat A sound there. Definitely.
and species isn’t a question, as you said b4- its plural.
I love grammar lessons!!
Mod 80:
From your whole list- half of them can be pronounced with that A sound(halfways at least!)
And many of them are pronounced with the I b4 E-(society,atheist,being), so naturally they are spelled the way they sound.
And BTW-when I post a comment it gives me a space for tags- the word separated is spelled seperated…
What an educational conversation!!
none of them sound like “A” as far as i can tell
Weird, sovereignty, foreign, their, heir all have the A sound.
no they dont
weird, foreign, and sovereignty have a soft i sound as in “PIN”
their and heir have a soft a sound as in “CAT”
the A in the rule is a hard A as in neighbor and weigh.
Well they’re not as obvious as weigh and sleigh but there’s that A sound there. Guess we each have our way of talking. You gotta make the CR audio!!
PS- can you please correct that sepErated mistake??
i cant fix that
would have to be the website people:
give them a buzz:
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