There is no rule before E and E before I words and Is it a rule after C?
The rule of thumb for English spelling is "I before E, except after C".The rhyme suggests that the correct order is if the preceding letter is c and the word is spelled with the digraph ei.For example:
Edward Carney calls the rule "this supreme, and for many people, spelling rule".[2]
Sometimes the rule is applied only to certain pronunciations, and sometimes it is not applied at all.There are two common restrictions.
There are exceptions to the rule, such as caffeine, policies, seize, species and weird.Some words, such as leisure and rottweiler, are exceptions under some versions of the rule.Some words may or may not be exceptions depending on which version of the rule is used and how an individual pronounces them.The rule has too many exceptions to be worth learning.It was 2, 3, and 4.
The sounds and spellings of loanwords from Norman French were added to the Middle English language, which evolved from Old English.The sound [e] was represented by the digraph ie>, while the ei> represented the sound in non-French words.The sounds of e and were raised in the Great Vowel Shift.Meat became a homonym of meet after the merger because the vowels in many words were changed to i.In printed works of the seventeenth century and private correspondence of educated people into the nineteenth century, many words were spelled interchangeably.
The Manual of English Spelling was edited by schools inspector James Stuart Laurie from the work of a Tavistock schoolmaster.Michael Quinion thinks the rhyme was already established before this date.A manual from 1834 states a similar rule in prose.The same rhyme is used in many textbooks from the 1870s.10
The "I before E except after C" rhyme is applied to the "long e" sound in the 1871 manual.Mark Wainwright's FAQ posting on the alt.usage.English newsgroup describes the restricted version as British.The restriction may be implicit or included as an extra line such as "when the sound is e" before or after the main part of the rhyme.
Rule 37 of the Rules for English Spelling has a list of "chief exceptions" and excludes the "long a" sound.
The form of the rhyme, which became common in American schools, is credited to Dr Brewer.10
"i before e except after c" is discussed in a Dictionary of Modern English.The rule was restricted to words with the "long e" sound, stating that "words in which that sound is not invariable, as either, nor, inveigle, do not come under it".The entry was retained in the revision."Except when the word is pronounced with /e/, the rule can helpfully be extended", stated Robert Burchfield in the 1996 edition.Robert Allen's 2008 pocket edition states, "The traditional spelling rule'i before e except after c' should be extended to include the statement 'when the combination is pronounced -ee- '".Jeremy Butterfield's 2015 edition suggests extensions to the rhyme, as well as listing various classes of exception.[25]
Leonard B. was born in 1932.The rules and word lists in American elementary school spelling books were examined by Wheat.Of the 3,876 words listed, 128 of them conformed to the spelling I-before-E, 6 to except-after-C, and 12 to sounded-like-A.He found 16 words with i-e in different parts of the word.This left 11 "irregular" words: 3 with cie and 8 withei.The writer would recommend that the rule be reduced to "I usually comes before e" if it weren't for the fact that it's hard to remember.[3]
One of the two sound–letter correspondence rules worth teaching in elementary schools is the sounded-like-E version.The rule was covered by five of nine software programs.[26]
The 1994 Survey of English Spelling describes the long-e version of the rule as "peculiar".
The spelling-to-sound rule E.16 is related to the converse of the "except after c" part.In his test wordlist, all eight words with cei> conform to this rule, which he describes as being a "marginal" rule with an "efficiency" of 100%.Loanwords that are not in the wordlist may not conform.The word ceilidh is a Gaelic word.
If a little common sense is used for the exceptions, the rule can be useful.The FAQ states that the restricted version has too many exceptions, and that there are variations on the rule and their exceptions.[30]
The neighbor-and-weigh version is "chocked with tons of exceptions" according to Kory Stamper.Mark Liberman suggested that the alternative "i before e, no matter what" was more reliable than the basic rule.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'," wrote the author in 2009."'[16]
Teaching English Spelling (Cambridge University Press, 2000) provides a system of sound–spelling correspondences to correct common spelling errors.There are five "common exceptions" listed in the chapter "The sound 'e' (/i/)".[31]
The English Department for Education suggests an "Extension activity" for Year Five (10-year-olds) in the 2009 edition of Support for Spelling.
Some controversy was generated by the widespread media reports of this recommendation.[16][10]
The Oxford University Press website states that the rule only applies when the sound is ee.It doesn't apply to words like science or efficient, in which the combination does not follow the letter c.[32]
The rule in David Crystal's 2012 history of English spelling is discussed.He restricts it to the vowels and accounts for several classes of exception.The factors are too great to reduce to a simple rule, but a basic knowledge of grammar and word- history can handle them.[33]
The except-after-C part of the long-e qualification "works very poorly" and should be consigned to oblivion according to an educationalist.[34]
Many of the augmented forms are not exceptions to the basic form.
There are words that break both the "I before E" and "except after C" part of the rule.
There are large groups of words with the same spelling.Few common words have the cei spelling handled by the rule.There is a ceiling.21 times the number of words that conform to the rule's stated exception by being written with cei was claimed by the QI show.The figures were created by a QI fan.The statistic was repeated.[37]
The "long e" vowel of FLEECE is rarely represented in words spelled cie, so few words are exceptions to the version of the rule restricted to that sound.Among them are species.
The final y in words ending -cy has the FLEECE vowel for those with happy-tensing accents.).
Words ending -cier may be exceptions if the NEAR vowel is considered long e.If stressed on the final syllable or pronounced with a happy-tensing accent, there are possible examples.
These are exceptions to the basic and "long a" versions of the rhyme.
In the sections that follow, derived forms are not included; for example, as well as seize.Each phoneme is represented phonetically as at Help:IPA/English and, where applicable, by the word in John C. Wells' lexical sets.
The pronunciation implied by a word is one of several found.The /i/ variant is more common in America than in Britain.Both leisure and sheikh have /e/.
The only exceptions to the strictest British interpretation of the rhyme are words where ei, not preceded by c, represents the vowels of FLEECE.Less strict interpretations admit that some words are exceptions.
There are many words where ei is preceded by c.There are a few where eir is not preceded by c.These groups of words are excluded from both restricted forms and the basic form of the rhyme.
These are exceptions to the basic and "long a" versions of the rhyme.
"I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can" and "The Pen Is Mightier Than the Pencil" are both episodes of The Odd Couple.In the 1990 TaleSpin episode "Vowel Play," when Kit corrects Baloo's spelling, the rhyme was used as a plot device.
I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways To Remember Stuff was a miscellany which sold well in the UK.[42]
Yazoo recorded a song called "I Before E Except After C" on their 1982 album Upstairs at Eric's."I before E except after C" is a song by the Jackson 5."I before E except after C" was an episode of East Side/West Side.
Alluding to the unusual spelling of the creator's name, I Before E is the name of both a short-story collection by Sam Kieth and a music album by Carissa.Andrew Peirce's name was "Peirce City" until the 1930s.The United States Census Bureau did not approve of reverting to the original spelling.[42]
The rule is used in a joke on Brian Regan's debut CD Live.[45]