CHAPTER 19

The i Before e Rule

There is one spelling rule that everybody remembers—at least the first two lines. Some of us can even

remember the next line. But what about the fourth line?

(^) In the case of the word money, some dictionaries offer the choice of moneys or monies and moneyed or
monied. Since the y is preceded by a vowel, there is no reason to change the y to i and thus no logical
reason to break the rule.
I before e
except after c
or when sounding like ay in neighbor and weigh
or when sounding like eye in seismic and height
There are so many hundreds of words that contain ie or ei that we cannot be blamed if we sometimes
doubt the validity of this rule, but the fact is that the rule is valid for an astonishingly high percentage of
words. The true anomalies are very few.
The spelling rule governs only those words where the two letters form a diphthong. They must produce
just one sound. Hundreds of words contain these two letters but do not fit the rule because the letters form
separate syllables.
Science is a two-syllable word.
Society has four syllables.
Quiet, being, and deity do not contain diphthongs.
In hieroglyphics, the letters ie form a diphthong, but in hierarchy they do not.
Spelling rule #1: I before e:
(^) Note that there are hundreds of words in this group, but no commonly used English word starts with ie.
Most of the words in this group will have the long e sound, but there are exceptions:
Spelling rule #2. ... except after c:
(^) A number of words seem to break this rule, but the vast majority of them are plurals like vacancies or
comparatives like juiciest, where the y has been changed to an i. There are very few true anomalies.
(^) Even these few anomalies are subject to argument as to whether or not the letters form a diphthong.
This depends on how the word is pronounced.