Stop Dissing the “I Before E” Spelling Mnemonic, Please

You have seen them—poems and Facebook memes declaring that the “I before E rule” is useless, and listing words spelled with ei.

One problem with these memes is that their creators have not learned the whole “I before E” rule.

Here’s the rule:

I before E except after c,

and when sounded like /A/

as in neighbor and weigh.

The rhyme covers three possible spellings with ie and ei.

 

What the “I before E” rule actually says

FIRST RULE: In most words in which the letters i and e combine to represent a single sound, the i comes before the e: thief, friend, retrieve, mischief, diesel, belief, grief, yield quiet, view, die, pie,

SECOND RULE: When the letter c precedes the letters i and e, then the e comes before the i: deceit, ceiling, receipt, conceit, perceive, conceive.

THIRD RULE: When the letter-combination is pronounced like /A/, then the e comes before the i: beige, eight, freight, sleigh, weight.

Exceptions to the rule

No spelling rule can apply to every possible word. However, because a rule has exceptions does not make it useless.

The English sound code must accommodate the spelling of thousands of words that have come from nearly every language on earth. Some of the words conform to English spelling conventions. Others have brought foreign conventions into the language with them.

Perhaps the people who ridicule what are called “English spelling rules” object to the word “rule.” Perhaps they feel that a “rule” should not have “exceptions.” If that’s the case, perhaps a different term would help.

Learning anchors or hooks

What we call “spelling rules” provide mental hooks or anchors around which information can accumulate.

Without having learned the “I before E” rhyme (the entire rhyme), a beginning speller who knows how to pronounce the words receive, neighbor, weird, eight, and foreign can only conclude that English spelling makes no sense.

BUT, knowing the rhyme provides context. Exceptions to the rule stand out. The few exceptions become familiar and the spelling is internalized.

A note about the third rule of “I before e”

The only word in my third list that is actually spelled with the ei phonogram is beige. The others are spelled with the phonogram eigh.

Phonogram: a letter or combination of letters that represent one speech sound.

Think of the phonogram eigh as “four-letter A.” This spelling almost always represents the long A sound. The only common exceptions are height and heigh-ho, in which eigh represents long I.