I Before E

This started as a post to the Usenet group 'talk.orgins'. I think it was in 1995.

English spelling is hard. To help kids, people made up some simple mnemonics.


"I before E except after C

or in absenteeism, Aeneid, agreeing, albeit, Alexei,
Anaheim, Andrei, aniseikonic, atheism, atheist, atheistic, atheists,
Bahrein, beige, Beijing, being, beings, Beirut, Bernstein, Blenheim,
Bodenheim, Bodleian, bodyweight, Boeing, Brandeis, Budweiser,
Budweisers, caffein, caffeinated, caffeine, Cassiopeia, codeine,
counterfeit, counterfeited, counterfeiter, counterfeiting, Creighton,
decreeing, deify, deign, deigned, deigning, deigns, Deimos, Deirdre,
Deirdres, deities, deity, deoxyribonucleic, disagreeing, dyeing,
Einstein, Einsteinian, Epstein, eyeing, Fahrenheit, Fahrenheits,
featherweight, feign, feigned, feigning, Ferreira, Fischbein, fleeing,
Fleischman, Fleisher, foreign, foreigner, foreigners, foreigns,
forfeit, forfeited, forfeiture, freeing, freeings, Freida, freight,
freighted, freighter, freighters, freighting, freights, Geiger, Geigy,
geisha, Goldstein, guaranteeing, Guggenheim, heavyweight, Heidegger,
Heidelberg, heifer, height, heighten, heightened, heightening,
heightens, heights, Heine, Heinlein, heinous, heinously, Heinrich,
Heinz, Heinze, heir, heiress, heiresses, heirs, Heisenberg, Heiser,
herein, hereinafter, heterogeneity, Heublein, Holstein, homogeneities,
homogeneity, inhomogeneities, inhomogeneity, Janeiro, Keith, Klein,
Kleinrock, kneeing, Leibniz, Leiden, Leigh, Leighton, Leila, Leipzig,
leisure, leisurely, Liechtenstein, lightweight, Lorelei, Madeira,
Madeleine, Marseilles, McNeil, Meier, Meiji, Meister, Meistersinger,
monotheism, neigh, neighbor, neighborhood, neighborhoods, neighboring,
neighborly, neighbors, Neil, neither, nuclei, nucleic, Oneida,
O'Neill, Oppenheimer, Oresteia, outweigh, outweighed, outweighing,
outweighs, overseeing, pantheism, pantheist, paperweight, Peiping,
Perseid, pharmacopoeia, plebeian, Pleiades, Pleistocene, polytheist,
Pompeii, Poseidon, preinitialize, preinitialized, preinitializes,
preinitializing, protein, proteins, queueing, Raleigh, Rayleigh,
refereeing, Reich, Reichenberg, Reichstag, Reid, reign, reigned,
reigning, reigns, Reilly, reimbursable, reimburse, reimbursed,
reimbursement, reimbursements, rein, reincarnate, reincarnated,
reincarnation, reindeer, reined, reinforce, reinforced, reinforcement,
reinforcements, reinforcer, reinforces, reinforcing, Reinhard,
Reinhardt, Reinhold, reinitialize, reinitialized, reinitializing,
reins, reinsert, reinserted, reinserting, reinserts, reinstate,
reinstated, reinstatement, reinstates, reinstating, reinterpret,
reinterpreted, reinterpreting, reinterprets, reintroduce,
reintroduced, reintroduces, reintroducing, reinvent, reinvented,
reinventing, reinvents, reiterate, reiterated, reiterates,
reiterating, reiteration, Rheims, Rheinholdt, ribonucleic, Rosenzweig,
Schneider, Schweitzer, seeing, Seidel, seismic, seismograph,
seismology, seize, seized, seizes, seizing, seizure, seizures, Sergei,
sheik, Sheila, shoeing, sightseeing, Silverstein, simultaneity,
sleigh, sleighs, sleight, sovereign, sovereigns, sovereignty,
spontaneity, Steinbeck, Steinberg, Steiner, Taipei, their, theirs,
therein, Thorstein, unveil, unveiled, unveiling, unveils, veil,
veiled, veiling, veils, vein, veined, veining, veins, Wallenstein,
Wei, Weibull, Weider, Weidman, Weierstrass, weigh, weighed, weighing,
weighings, weighs, weight, weighted, weighting, weights, weighty,
Weinberg, Weiner, Weinstein, weird, weirdly, Weisenheimer, Weiss,
Weissman, Weissmuller, wherein, Wisenheimer, Wittgenstein, Zeiss,
accuracies, adequacies, agencies, ancient, anciently, ancients,
autocracies, bankruptcies, bioscience, bureaucracies, coefficient,
coefficients, concurrencies, conscience, consciences, conscientious,
conscientiously, conspiracies, constituencies, contingencies,
currencies, decencies, deficiencies, deficiency, deficient,
delicacies, democracies, dependencies, discrepancies, efficiencies,
efficiency, efficient, efficiently, emergencies, fallacies, fancied,
fancier, fanciers, fancies, fanciest, financier, financiers, Francie,
frequencies, glacier, glaciers, Gracie, immediacies, inaccuracies,
inadequacies, inconsistencies, indeterminacies, inefficiencies,
inefficiency, inefficient, inefficiently, insufficient,
insufficiently, interdependencies, intricacies, juiciest, legacies,
Lucien, Muncie, occupancies, omniscient, omnisciently, policies,
privacies, proficiency, proficient, proficiently, prophecies,
redundancies, science, sciences, scientific, scientifically,
scientist, scientists, societal, societies, society, specie, species,
sufficiency, sufficient, sufficiently, tendencies, transparencies,
vacancies, as well as a number of words that you needn't worry about
in elementary school." 


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