I before E, except after C.
Even beige caffeinated reindeer who are heirs to feisty, foreign, sheik senseis who deign to sing “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” to neighboring counterfeit keisters in Beijing and pull at their sleigh reins against Santa’s weight until the veins in their heads bulge understand this. Weird.
What’s the problem?
This is a stalwart grade-school mnemonic that has appeared in English grammar textbooks since 1866, and it still appears in some texts today. The problem is this mnemonic is—as M*A*S*H* Colonel Harry Potter so eloquently stated—horse hockey.
I did some research over the weekend (meaning I did a 10-second Google search) and I learned that a statistician at the University of Warwick used a groovy statistical program to determine whether the first part of the rhyme is at least usually true (I usually comes before E). He ran 350,000 English words through this gizmo and determined that yes indeed, the ratio of IE:EI spellings is about 3:1. If you’re using baseball batting averages as your yardstick, batting .250 will keep you on the roster provided your glove work is exceptional, but it won’t usually get you to the all-star game either. Words such as “fierce,” “pierce,” and “believe” prove that I usually comes before E.
Unfortunately, the rule smacks right into a Wile E. Coyote cliff almost immediately when we think about the second part of the rhyme, “except after C.”
The aforementioned (and wicked smart) statistician then identified all words from his 350,000-word dataset that contained either “CEI” or “CIE” letter strings. Based on the popular rhyme, one would expect that “CEI” spellings would outpace “CIE” spellings. Unfortunately, that’s bunk, too. Because English is a cruel mistress, “CIE” words actually outnumber “CEI” words by a 3:1 ratio.
After a little more research—another five-second Google dive—I learned that the University of Warwick study wasn’t the first time this rule had been questioned. It turns out that a 1932 article in the Elementary School Journal concluded that “if it were not for the fact that the jingle of the rule makes it easy to remember (although not necessarily easy to apply), the writer would recommend that the rule be reduced to ‘I usually comes before e,’ or that it be discarded entirely.”
If you’re thinking about a pitchfork- and torch-carrying visit to your English teacher’s bungalow, I don’t blame you. I’ll bring snacks and a lighter.
Defenders of the rule have attempted to legitimize it by making crafty additions such as:
- “I before E, except after C when the sound is ē.” —Of course, this is debunked by “species” and “financier.”
- “I before E except after C, or when sounding ā, as in neighbor or weigh.” —And because English is ridiculous, this is debunked by “being” and “counterfeit.”
As reported earlier this year by The Washington Post, “Merriam-Webster once facetiously tried to account for all exceptions with the following jingle:”
I before E, except after C
Or when sounded as ā as in “neighbor” and “weigh”
Unless the C is part of a SH sound as in “glacier”
Or it appears in comparatives and superlatives like “fancier”
And also except when the vowels are sounded as ē as in “seize”
Or ī as in “height”
Or also in “-ING” inflections ending in ē as in “cueing”
Or in compound words as in “albeit”
Or occasionally in technical words with strong etymological links to their parent languages as in “cuneiform”
Or in other numerous and random exceptions such as “science,” “forfeit,” and “weird”
Thanks, Webster, but I think I’d rather try teaching my cats to polka.
In fact, today I learned that 923 words break the I before E except after C rule and a measly 44 actual follow it. Oy vey…
Our hero from University of Warwick then decided to determine whether there’s a more accurate letter (more so than C) that would fit the mnemonic, and it turns out there is: W.
Words such as weird, weight, and Rottweiler, make “I before E except after W” more accurate—though decidedly less sexy—than “I before E except after C.” I suppose we could edit the mnenomic just a little to read, “I before E except after We,” though even this isn’t entirely accurate either.
If nothing else, rules like this mean job security—and perhaps early senility—for editors like yours truly.
