If one is unsure whether a word is spelled with the digraph ⟨ei⟩ or ⟨ie⟩, the rhyme suggests that the correct order is ⟨ie⟩ unless the preceding letter is ⟨c⟩, in which case it may be ⟨ei⟩.
The rhyme is very well known; Edward Carney calls it "this supreme, and for many people solitary, spelling rule".
Later, the meet–meat merger saw the vowel in many [eː] words change to [iː], so that meat became a homonym of meet, while conceive now rhymed with believe.
[citation needed] The mnemonic (in its short form) is found as early as 1866, as a footnote in Manual of English Spelling,[8] edited by schools inspector James Stuart Laurie from the work of a Tavistock schoolmaster named Marshall.
[15] The restriction may be implicit, or may be explicitly included as an extra line such as "when the sound is e" placed before[15] or after[16] the main part of the rhyme.
"Dr Brewer" is credited as the author by subsequent writers quoting this form of the rhyme,[18][19][20] which became common in American schools.
[23] Robert Allen's 2008 pocket edition states, "The traditional spelling rule ' i before e except after c ' should be extended to include the statement 'when the combination is pronounced -ee- '".
Wheat examined the rules and word lists found in various American elementary school spelling books.
[26] Edward Carney's 1994 Survey of English Spelling describes the ["long-e" version of the] rule as "peculiar":[1] Its practical use is ... simply deciding between two correspondences for /iː/ that are a visual metathesis of each other.
Nevertheless, selection among competing correspondences has never been, and could never be, covered by such aids to memory.The converse of the "except after c" part is Carney's spelling-to-sound rule E.16: in the sequence ⟨cei⟩, the ⟨ei⟩ is pronounced /iː/.
[3] On Language Log in 2006, Mark Liberman suggested that the alternative "i before e, no matter what" was more reliable than the basic rule.
[34] Educationalist Greg Brooks says the long-e qualification "is hardly ever mentioned, perhaps because it is difficult to explain to children"; the except-after-C part "works very poorly"; and the mnemonic "should be consigned to oblivion".
Few common words have the cei spelling handled by the rule: verbs ending -ceive and their derivatives (perceive, deceit, transceiver, receipts, etc.
Types include: Many words have ei not preceded by c. In the sections that follow, most derived forms are omitted; for example, as well as seize, there exist disseize and seizure.
Words where ei, not preceded by c, represents the vowel of FLEECE (/iː/), are the only exceptions to the strictest British interpretation of the "long e" version of the rhyme.
The rhyme was used as a climactic plot device in the 1990 TaleSpin episode "Vowel Play" when Kit corrects Baloo's spelling by reciting the second half ("or when sounding like A, as in neighbour or weigh") of the mnemonic.
I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways To Remember Stuff was a miscellany released in the UK for the Christmas 2007 "stocking filler" market,[43] which sold well.
[45] Comedian Brian Regan employs the rule in a joke on his debut CD Live in the track Stupid in School, where he states it as "I before E, except after C, and with 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!