# What’s the best spelling rule for “ie” vs “ei”? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 21, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080 "2006-12-21T16:24:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/21 "2006-12-21T19:51:55Z")
[QUOTE=ultrafilter] Neither leisured foreign counterfeiter could attain either weird height without forfeitting protein. [/QUOTE] Gah! I forgot **foreign** , **forfeit** , **either** , and **protein**. But I remembered **surfeit**? 😕 Another … **sovereign**. Okay, okay … so we’ve blown past ten. Maybe less than 25 _common_ words? **Former Marine Guy’s** list is cool reading, but contains a lot of rare words. > [@](#): > > My neighbor’s eight beige reindeer weigh too much to be sent by freight. > > Between those two sentences, you’ve got almost every exception to the “i before e except after c” rule. The words in this sentence actually _fit_ the rule for me, due to the “sounded as **a** ” exception in the version I always heard. ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/22 "2006-12-21T20:22:43Z")
I learned it as: I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A, as in neighbor and weigh. What a weird society! ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/23 "2006-12-21T20:44:16Z")
[Wikipedia speaks.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_e) ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2006, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/24 "2006-12-21T23:54:18Z")
I learned it as “_i_ before _e_ except after _c_, when the sound is _ee_” That deals nicely with many of the exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Joools](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6de8d8/32.png) [@Joools](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joools)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/25 "2006-12-22T06:00:05Z")
Seriously, we’re this far into the thread, and nobody has mentioned “their”? ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/26 "2006-12-22T09:59:42Z")
[QUOTE=1920s Style “Death Ray”] I learned it as “_i_ before _e_ except after _c_, when the sound is _ee_” That deals nicely with many of the exceptions. [/QUOTE] Ditto, except for the caveat - the version I learnt was ’ i before e except after c, if it rhymes with ee ’ Interestingly I only heard the caveat from a friend when I was at Uni, he went to a very competent school - Winchester. ---
**Author:** ![Shecky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Shecky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shecky)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/27 "2006-12-22T15:20:38Z")
“I before e except after c or when sounded as a as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh,’ or weekends or holidays or all throughout May, and you’ll always be wrong no matter what you say!" ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/28 "2006-12-22T15:28:53Z")
**Glacier** , although I normally knew how to spell it, got me kicked out of the state spelling bee once, because I went with the rule. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/29 "2006-12-22T18:35:20Z")
[QUOTE=Shecky] “I before e except after c or when sounded as a as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh,’ or weekends or holidays or all throughout May, and you’ll always be wrong no matter what you say!" [/QUOTE] Brian Regan! I was going to quote this as well! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Myglaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080/30 "2006-12-22T19:50:08Z")
[QUOTE=jebert] Yeah, I know I can look it up in a dictionary or use spell check, but sometimes those things aren’t available. **(Unless I’m missing something, I don’t see a spell checker in this SDMB reply window I’m using**.) The rule I’m trying to remember was in my English III textbook, which was maybe 5" x 7" in size and had a picture of a printer’s typecase on the cover. In fact our school used the complete series of these books for the four years of English. The covers were identical except for the color of the square that the title was printed in. Anyone remember those books? [/QUOTE] Firefox with the spellchecker enabled. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-the-best-spelling-rule-for-ie-vs-ei/385080.md?page=1)