I before E

[Joel S. Berson]

Arnold, I'm waiting for the expanded rubric.  "Neither leisured
foreign sheik ..."?

Joel

At 6/25/2009 01:59 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>i've been comparing the American and British guidelines for IE vs. EI,
>using the amended version of the British guidelines i suggested in my
>last posting on the matter (in which EI is taken as the ultimate
>default).  as i said earlier, the British version usually given
>applies only to spellings of /i/ -- in which domain it works pretty
>well, with a relatively small list of exceptions:
>
>[in some varieties] either, neither; [for some speakers] leisure; [for
>some speakers] sheikh; seize; [for some speakers] weir; [for some
>speakers] weird; caffeine, casein, codeine, [when disyllabic] protein
>     (proper names, some examples:) Deirdre, Keith, Neil, Sheila
>
>as it turns out, taking EI to be the ultimate default does a lot of
>good work, since that covers a lot of exceptions to the American
>version.  it does pick up at least three exceptions of its own, with
>IE spelling a vowel other than /i/:
>   friend, handkerchief, mischief
>
>still, neither version covers a lot of territory, especially when you
>stick to reasonably common vocabulary, and both are fairly complex,
>with three clauses in each.
>
>arnold
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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