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."