"i" before "e" except after "c"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Something profoundly symbolic in all this.  It takes a teacher a minute or
so to teach the rule correctly. That rule will allow students, by and
large, to save many minutes over their lifetimes that would otherwise be
wasted in misspelling words that needn't be misspelled.  On the whole, a
plus.

Yet the British educational opponents of the rule have (or have been
misreported as having) seized on it for special scorn and removal from the
curriculum.

Is it really "i before e" that these educators and journalists are exercised
about?  I doubt it, though it's hard to say exactly what is cheesing them
off.  A feeling that any orthographic (popularly, "grammatical")
rule terrorizes/colonizes the minds of students?

Those are the frequently "deployed" verbs in such discussions. (Now usually
called "conversations," presumably because theoretically a "discussion"
is better focused (i.e., disciplined).

Just wondering.

JL
On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> see truespel.com
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