I before E except after C, and when sounding like A as in "neighbor" and "weigh", and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, and you'll NEVER be right no matter WHAT you say!
this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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CAT. K A T. I'm outta here.
(I know there's two Ts)
Oh... That's a hard rule
The "except after c" rule is for when the vowels make a long "e" sound.
Honestly, if you’ve got a sense for when it applies (of the words in the blurb, only Keith and counterfeit are actually exceptions), it can be pretty helpful. I learned this:
I before e except after c
Or when sounding like a as in neighbor and weigh
And weird’s weird!
And it applies only to words with an e sound that isn’t a diphthong, and not to words that are recent arrivals from other languages. If you’re using it to try to spell “hacienda,” it’s worthless. If you’re using it to figure out “conceited,” it’ll help.
This just in: the English language has posted a response. 'We are a tough language. We freely admit this. However, we refuse to take any responsibility for Keith. His unusual... predilections are not related to us.'
Did you know if you only pay attention to half the rule the rule is useless?
Which part of the rule covers foreign or Keith? Counterfeit? Caffeinated? Feisty?
This was the biggest lie they taught us.
I mean DARE was right up there.
What species were they?
On protein supplements
Once had a substitute teacher so stupid she marked "weird" as being spelled wrong
Weirdo
Can anyone explain what's "i before e"?
I before E except after C
And when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh
And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May
And you'll always be wrong no matter WHAT YOU SAY
Heh, onlu rule in English: Memorize them all!
It isn't often I see Brian Regan bits in the wild. The same thing came to mind.
It's a general pattern someone noticed and then rhymed, that ⟨ie⟩ is more likely to appear than ⟨ei⟩ in English, except after ⟨c⟩. But it is not a real rule, there's no orthographic restriction behind that pattern, not even an underlying phonemic reason. So you're bound to see exceptions everywhere, to the point the pattern is useless as a mnemonic.
I wouldn't go that far. Sometimes I'm not sure which way around they go, and that will usually lead you the right way.
You got me curious, so I checked it.
I downloaded this wordlist with 479k words, and used find+replace to count four strings: cie, cei, ie, ei. Here's the result:
- 16566 (75%)
ievs. 5649 (25%)ei - 875
cie(74%) vs. 302cei(26%)
So the basic rule (i before e) holds some merit, but the "except after c" part is bullshit - it's practically the same distribution.
Of course, this takes all words as equiprobable; results would be different if including the odds of a word appearing in the text into the maths.
Of course, this takes all words as equiprobable; results would be different if including the odds of a word appearing in the text into the maths.
I feel like it works more like 90% of the time when it comes up, so maybe this. And could it be that the words where "ie" appears are more ambiguous somehow, like don't fit neatly into some existing pattern?
I don't remember the "after c" bit ever being of use, though, so that part totally makes sense.
Edit: For an example, I'd never forget the spelling of "either", because it's so common and initial letters are more memorable. But, "piece" is tricky - "peice" is my first instinct, and I literally say "i before e" in my head when I write it now.
I thought it was specifically about words with long e sounds? So "Keith" would be an exception (but it's a name and those are always weird - though "weird" itself is a better example), but most of the stuff on the mug it never meant to apply to. And overall for long e sounds it applies far more often than not. Ultimately english spelling will always be a clusterfuck though.
And I sure wish people would stop spelling wiener as weiner. The city is called Wien ffs.
Rules for English that aren't absolute.
I before e except after c. Which obviously is not totally accurate.
Thanks for the link. Explains why I never heard of it, it's more or less useless. Though English spelling has many problems, not just this.
Glad I never learned it. I mean, I know the words but never internalized them so I don't use it. Happy accidents, I guess?
If this was an exhaustive list (and I believe it isn't), "weird" should've been part of the previous sentence.