ericbombYou can change the spelling of one word in the English language to match how they are pronounced. What word do you pick?
Lancewierd.
Just remember I before E except after C!
And when sounding in A, as in neighbor and weigh
JWBananasAnd glacier, because… glacier.
And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May
And you’ll never be right, no matter what you say!
I remember it as “i before e except all the exceptions where it just seems like there’s more exceptions than the rule would indicate”
This poem by Jef Raskin includes several dozen exceptions:
“I before E
Except after C,
Unless pronounced A
As in ‘neighbor’ or ‘weigh’”
Education is forfeit for reinforcing such rules!
Sound a feisty reveille while eyeing the schools!
Neither will our heirs be agreeing to deceptions
Once seeing, herein, these sufficient exceptions:
We were seized by a feeling
For fleeing on the ceiling
To a leisurely meal
With Keith, Sheila, and Neil
We drank madeira, so foreign, in steins
Along with a surfeit of weird blueish wines
Being foolish, took codeine, ate ancient proteins
Therein guaranteeing these ogreish scenes
Wherein we’re canoeing to a new sovereign state
While deicing a kaleidoscope on a hot jadeite plate
And kneeing obeisance to an overseeing king
Our plebeian lips kissed his counterfeit ring.
Then we unveiled their sleight-of-hand trick
Deifying a heifer, with effect atheistic
And falling from the heights with a loud seismic crunch
We reignited the nonpareils we had heisted for lunch.
So I before E
Except after C
Unless pronounced A?
False decreeing, I say!