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!
-- Brian Regan
this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2026
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me_irl
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There are more exceptions to the 'i before e' rule in the English language than there are words that follow the rule.
Wow, that's a hard rule!
Just remember:
I before E except after c but not when your conscientious scientist foreign neighbors Keith and Heidi Einstein seize their eight counterfeit reindeer heifer sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters of average height in a heist and deigns to reimburse the concierge. WEIRD.
Because English is 3 languages in a Trenchcoat
three? only?
Receive inherited the "ei" from French. Retrieve was "e" only, switched to "i" only, and then went to both, all after it was already in English.
A lot of the crazy spelling in English is either because of old French or because medieval/Renaissance scholars found out about Latin and decided they wanted some of it for themselves.
English is not a serious language
It's just as serious/unserious as any other natural human language.
english is three languages in a trench coat
English makes WAY more sense when you learn the etymology of words. Multiple languages in a trench coat is totally accurate. Usually, if the spelling is all fucky and doesn't make sense, it's from French... Or sometimes Latin. Although Latin makes more sense than French.
english makes more sense when never spoken or heard, only ever read and written
This meme is literally about the spelling of things. I don't know if you know this, but you have to spell words to write them.
You can learn about spelling rules at your leisure but it might cause a seizure.
i before e except after c
Weird
I always went by "i before e except when it's not".
I always went by "vowels in english spelling are not phonetic" rule
That's not very helpful but at least it's true