"i" before "e" except after "c" (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Geoff Nathan]

Further to Bill's comments, I had always understood the rule to be a 'guide to the perplexed' (with apologies to Rambam) telling us which of the two alternatives to choose under the appropriate circumstances.  And since nobody in their right mind would try to spell 'science' as 'sceince' such instances would not arise.
Spelling rules of thumb are exactly that--heuristics, not algorithms.

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- "Bill AMRDEC Mullins" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:

> From: "Bill AMRDEC Mullins" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 5:39:47 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: "i" before "e" except after "c" (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: "i" before "e" except after "c" (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> > Behalf Of Tom Zurinskas
> > Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 7:31 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: "i" before "e" except after "c"
> >
> >
> > I examined the; "i" before "e" except after "c" rule (cei vs. cie).
> >
> >
> > The database of truespel book 4 is used to analyze the number
> > of words with tradstreengz "cie" and "cei".  The data involves
> > the top 5k most popular words in English print.  The overall word
> > instances for these 5k words 15.4 million.  For example, the word
> > "the" is most popular with 1.08 M instances out of 15.4 M total.
> >
> > RESULTS
> >
> > There are only four words containing "cei" in the top 5k words.
> > These are: received, receive, ceiling, and receiving in order.
> > They add up to 3,077 instances in 15.4 M instances total.
> > (Yet this is supposed to be the majority form.)
> >
> > There are 16 words with "cie" (which is opposite the rule).
> > They add up to 17,351 instances.
> > These words are (in order of popularity):
> > society, science, species, ancient, scientific, societies,
> > policies, scientists, sufficient, efficient, efficiency,
> sufficiently,
> > conscience, sciences, agencies, scientist.
> >
> > CONCLUSION
> > The "i" before "e" except after "c" rule is busted.
> >
>
> Have you set up something of a straw man here?  I've never perceived
> the
> "rule" to be necessary or apply to words in which the "i" and "e" are
> in
> parts of two different syllables (from your example, Society,
> Science,
> Scientific, Societies, Scientists, sciences, scientist), or in cases
> where "ies" is an inflection of words ending in "y" (your Policies
> and
> Agencies, also Fancied).  If you take out these examples from your
> statistics, how does the data look?
>
> Further, when I mentally "sound out" a word to spell it, I deal with
> "cient/cienc" as (for example) sufficient/Suh-fish-ee-ent, internally
> breaking "ie" into two syllables.  I realize that this isn't standard
> pronunciation (and I don't actually pronounce the words that way),
> but
> it leads me to the conclusion that when the "c" in "cie" is soft
> ch/sh,
> the rule doesn't apply in an analogous way to the two-syllable
> exception
> I mention above.
>
> With these addenda to the "rule", the only exception left is
> "species"
> -- not sufficient, I would think, to bust the rule.
>
> I'm surprised that "receipt", "perceive", "conceive", "conceit",
> "deceive" and "deceit" (and associated forms) aren't in your list.
> "Transceiver" isn't as common, but is still common enough that your
> net
> should be cast wide enough to include
> it.
>
> If you expanded your sample size so that most of the words I list in
> the
> paragraph immediately preceding are included, and remove as
> exceptions
> those words in which "i" and "e" are parts of two separate syllables,
> I'd bet that the rule applies (even if a sample space of this size
> ends
> up including "regencies", "efficiencies", and "necromancies").
>
>
> I learned the full form of the rule:
>
> **************
> I before E
> Except after C
> Or when sounded as A
> As in neighbor and weigh.
> *************************
> and the rule works for me.  And by works, I mean that when I'm
> stumped
> on how to spell a word, the rule gives useful guidance in my
> experience.
> It may be that I instinctively know how to spell your exception
> words,
> and never apply the rule to them, but nevertheless, when I do apply
> it,
> it is helpful.  Which is the standard by which I judge the rule's
> utility.
>
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org