The mnemonic goes like this, “i” before “e” except after “c”. There are more exceptions to the rule than words that follow the rule. In a guide, Support For Spelling, that was distributed by the British government to 13,000 primary schools it was suggested that the rule, “I before E except after C”, should be dropped because it “is not worth teaching”.

The truth is I don’t think this rule has ever helped me, just the opposite, It never fails to mess me up. Thank god for spell check, otherwise I guess I’d have to learn to spell all these words!  Here are some of the words I use pretty much all the time.

weird
neither
either
neighbor
weigh
their
seize
height
eight
sufficient
protein