Justin and Kenan Wayne are among thousands of students in Academic Associates Learning Centers® and schools around the world. Students have had to learn that old spelling rule for over a hundred years. But it’s wrong! Words like ceiling, receive and conceit fit the rule, but words like ancient, glacier and science don’t.
There are only eight root words in the entire English language spelled with c-e-i, vs. eighteen spelled with c-i-e. More than twice as many words are spelled with c-i-e than with c-e-i.*
And that i before e part as a general spelling rule is only right about twothirds of the time. If you rely on that rule, you’ll misspell one out of every three words that contain e-i or i-e.
There is a third part of that old rule, however, which is one hundred percent correct. It says, or when sounded like a, as in vein or weigh. E-i can copy the sound of long a, as in vein or weigh, but i-e can’t.
The eight c-e-i words are: 1. ceiling 2. conceit 3. conceive 4. deceit 5. deceive 6. perceive 7. receipt 8. receive
The eighteen c-i-e words are: 1. ancient 2. boccie 3. coefficient 4. concierge 5. conscience 6. deficient 7. efficient 8. fancier 9. financier 10. glacier 11. omniscience 12. prescience 13. prima facie 14. proficient 15. science 16. sufficient 17. society 18. species
For a fun essay on 1 before E, we suggest The I Before E Deceit Unveiled
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