Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Blossom]

I was once told by a teacher, � �i� before �e� except after �c� ." But I have found on the web:

abortifacient, ancien, anciens, ancient, ancienter, ancientest, anciently, ancientness, ancients, bioscience, biosciences, bioscientist, boccie, calefacient, coefficient, coefficients, cogencies, concierge, concierges, conscience, conscienceless, consciences, conscientious, conscientiously, conscientiousness, curacies, deficiencies, deficiency, deficient, deficiently, delirifacient, efficiencies, efficiency, efficient, efficiently, facie, facies, faience, faiences, farcies, financier, financiers, gaieties, gaiety, geoscientist, geoscientists, glacier, glaciered, glaciers, hacienda, haciendas, inefficiencies, inefficiency, inefficient, inefficiently, insufficiencies, insufficiency, insufficient, insufficiently, intersocietal, liquefacient, nascencies, nescient, nescients, neuroscience, nonscientific, objicient, omniscience, omniscient, omnisciently, overconscientious, prescience, prescient, prescientific, proficiency, proficient, proficiently, pseudoscientific, pseudoscientifically, science, sciences, scientific, scientifically, scientist, scientistic, scientists, societal, societies, society, specie, species, stupefacient, subspecies, sufficiencies, sufficiency, sufficient, sufficiently, testacies, unconscientious, unconscientiously, unscientific, unscientifically

[pugachevV]

It only works when the pronunciation of the vowel combination is "ee".
as in relief, belief, receive.

[clonc]

Unfortunately, pugachevV, this is not true. For example: anciently, curacies, deficiencies, efficiency, insufficiency, testacies.

[Lorikeet]

[Blossom]

[pugachevV]

When you are 60 years old, Blossom, you will not have used either word in your everyday use of English.
If clonc can only come up with two exceptions to the rule, and Lorikeet has pointed out a couple more, then the rule is a pretty good one.
English, being a heady brew of many languages, is very difficult to pin down with hard and fast rules.

[iitimone7]

pug - the saying that you referred to is a rhymn which can help students remember how to spell words with ie or ie. however, the rhymn goes on to say that there are exceptions to the rule, as others have pointed out. not every rule is absolutely true or absolutely false - that's what makes english hard...

[advoca]

Yes you are absolutely right, iitimone. It is a poor rule, and only a very rough one. It is not a good one for students to learn.

[Lorikeet]

[Blossom]

[Lorikeet]

It's a rhyme. He just made a typo.

[trueblue]

Certain "rules" are not 100% applicable. There are exceptions.