• Davel23@fedia.io
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    11 hours ago

    I before E except after C, and when sounding like A as in “neighbor” and “weigh”, and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, and you’ll NEVER be right no matter WHAT you say!

  • cosmicpancake@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    This “rule” is a crime against teaching. It pretends to be helpful but mostly just tattoos misinformation on mugs and confuses kids. Weird, neighbor, weigh, seize, caffeine, leisure, height… English has so many exceptions.

    • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyzM
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      2 hours ago

      It’s a general pattern someone noticed and then rhymed: ⟨ie⟩ is more likely to appear than ⟨ei⟩ in English, except after ⟨c⟩. However it is not a rule; there’s no orthographic principle behind that pattern, not even an underlying phonemic reason, so you’re bound to see exceptions everywhere, to the point it’s useless.

    • Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip
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      8 hours ago

      I before E except after C

      And when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh

      And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May

      And you’ll always be wrong no matter WHAT YOU SAY

      • muhyb@programming.dev
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        8 hours ago

        Thanks for the link. Explains why I never heard of it, it’s more or less useless. Though English spelling has many problems, not just this.

  • kamen@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    If this was an exhaustive list (and I believe it isn’t), “weird” should’ve been part of the previous sentence.

  • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
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    12 hours ago

    The “except after c” rule is for when the vowels make a long “e” sound.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Honestly, if you’ve got a sense for when it applies (of the words in the blurb, only Keith and counterfeit are actually exceptions), it can be pretty helpful. I learned this:

      I before e except after c

      Or when sounding like a as in neighbor and weigh

      And weird’s weird!

      And it applies only to words with an e sound that isn’t a diphthong, and not to words that are recent arrivals from other languages. If you’re using it to try to spell “hacienda,” it’s worthless. If you’re using it to figure out “conceited,” it’ll help.

  • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Glad I never learned it. I mean, I know the words but never internalized them so I don’t use it. Happy accidents, I guess?

  • metallic_substance@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    I completely get the joke, but it didn’t need to be made. It certainly didn’t need to be printed on a mug, shipped from another country, and been posted wherever it was posted originally, then reposted here.

    • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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      9 hours ago

      Get off my lawn ;-)

      These days, it’s “didn’t need an unfathomable quantity of compute resource to AI slop it into an image meme”.