i before e

i before e

The traditional spelling rule ‘i before e except after c’ should be extended to include the statement ‘when the combination is pronounced -ee-’, as in believe, brief, fiend, hygiene, priest, siege, and in ceiling, deceive, conceit, receipt, receive, etc. The extension to the rule is necessary in order to take account of words such as beige, freight, neighbour, sleigh, veil, vein, weigh (all pronounced -ay-), eiderdown, feisty, height, heist, kaleidoscope, sleight (all pronounced -iy-), and words in which the i and e are pronounced as separate vowels, e.g. holier, occupier. This leaves caffeine, protein, and seize as the most important exceptions to the rule as qualified.