Fwd: "i" before "e" except after "c"

[Arnold Zwicky]

inadvertently sent only to Pauline Bryant, but meant for the whole list:

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> Date: June 24, 2009 8:13:55 AM PDT
> To: pauline.bryant at anu.edu.au
> Subject: Re: "i" before "e" except after "c"
>
>
> On Jun 23, 2009, at 9:41 PM, Pauline Bryant wrote:
>
>> The rule works pretty well if you were taught the whole rule:
>>
>> i before e
>> except after c
>> when the sound is ee. .....(That sound is [i] or ~ee.)
>>
>> It's the last line that makes the rule work.
>>
>> We were told that the only exception to the rule is 'seize', though
>> 'protein' and 'caffeine' are other exceptions, and there may be a
>> few more.
>
> also WEIRD, and for a great many americans: EITHER, NEITHER,
> LEISURE, SHEIKH (if you have /i/ in them).  plus substance names in -
> EIN(E) -- CODEINE as well as PROTEIN and CAFFEINE as above (though
> i'm not sure how you would teach this set of exceptions as a set).
> and  some proper names, like KEITH (alas, KIETH occurs both as a
> personal name and a family name) and SHEILA (alas, again, SHIELA
> also occurs).
>
> meanwhile, this version of the rule says nothing about cases where
> the sound is not /i/, as in the very commonly misspelled THEIR and
> in straightforward /e/ cases, like NEIGHBOR, WEIGH, VEIN and in the
> cases of (N)EITHER pronounced with /ai/ and LEISURE pronounced with /
> E/ and SHEIKH pronounced with /e/, and in STEIN (both common noun
> and proper name), FEINGOLD, etc., with /ai/, and in SCIENCE and
> other cases where the letters represent two vowels in sequence.
>
> this is the usual british version; joel berson has posted the most
> common american version (I before E except after C or when sounded
> like A, as in NEIGHBOR and WEIGH -- plus a list of exceptions, which
> is incomplete).
>
> some discussion in:
>
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C
>
> the last time there was a flap in the press about spelling, some
> months ago, i started a Language Log posting on these spelling
> guidelines, but it got really complicated, in part because both
> versions depend on pronunciations, and many of these vary from
> speaker to speaker.
>
> someone has already pointed out that both versions are intended to
> guide spelling only when the writer knows that the word has I and E
> in sequence in it, and the only question is which order they come
> in.  (some more refined versions require that the vowel letters be
> pronounced together in a single syllable.  with that requirement,
> the guidelines say nothing about SCIENCE -- although this word is in
> fact moderately often misspelled.)
>
> to be really useful, any guideline should cover cases of very common
> misspellings, like THIER for THEIR and WIERD for WEIRD, and it
> strikes me that none of the versions i've seen is particularly good
> at that, even given the rather small domain they operate in.
>
> worse, i've long suspected that some misspellings -- THIER for
> THEIR, WIERD for WEIRD, DIETY for DEITY -- are in part induced by
> the spelling guidelines themselves.  in fact, the surprising
> misspelling SCEINCE might have been promoted by the american
> guidelines, since it has E before I after C. (the "except after C"
> clause doesn't do much work anyway, since it's there primarily for -
> CEIVE words and the word CEILING.)
>
> i also wonder about how the guidelines get used.  teachers certainly
> refer to them in correcting students' spelling.  but how often do
> people (students or others) refer to them while they are writing?  i
> certainly don't -- because when i hesitate over IE vs. EI, i just
> look it up, because the word i'm hesitating over is likely to be an
> exception to the guidelines i learned.
>
> arnold
>

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