I before E

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Jun 26, 2009, at 6:14 AM, i wrote:

> ... as i've said before, the customary british guidelines apply only
> to IE/
> EI spelling /i/, but that covers a pretty small territory.

i failed to mention that IE and EI spellings for /i/ (niece, seize)
are minority options, the major spellings for /i/ being EE (Peet's
coffee), EA (peat), and E-consonantletter-E (Pete).  (there are also
other minority options.)

so it's important that the writer has to know that the word is spelled
with I and E in one order or the other.  already a relatively small
domain.

arnold

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