I Before E Except After C

I Before E Except After C

"I before E, except after C" is a mnemonic rule of thumb for English spelling. If one is unsure whether a word is spelled with the sequence ei or ie, the rhyme suggests that the correct order is ie unless the preceding letter is c, in which case it is ei. For example:

• ie in believe, fierce, collie, die, friend
• ei after c in deceive, ceiling, receipt

The rule is very well known; Edward Carney calls it "this supreme, and for many people solitary, spelling rule". However, its short form as above has many common exceptions; for example:

• ie after c: species, science, sufficient
• ei not preceded by c: seize, weird, vein, foreign, eider, their, feisty

More exceptions are listed below.

The proportion of exceptions can be reduced by restricting application of the rule based on the sound represented by the spelling. Two common restrictions are:

• including only cases where the spelling represents the "long e" sound (the lexical sets of FLEECE and perhaps NEAR and happY)
• excluding cases where the spelling represents the "long a" sound (the lexical sets of FACE and perhaps SQUARE). This is commonly expressed by continuing the rhyme "or when sounding like A, as in neighbour or weigh"

Some authorities deprecate the rule as having too many exceptions to be worth learning.