Jillian in Texas writes:
I was just curious to know why neither and either and many other words, for that matter, do not fit the "i" before "e" rule. In fact, I'd like to know where the rule even came from and if it is still traditionally followed in the United States.
In general, i goes before e: achieve, belief, chief, friend, mischief, quiet, review, yield, siege.
The "e before i" rule usually applies when it's a "long e" sound after a c: receive, conceive, and so on.
The rule doesn't apply when the sound is not a long e: foreign, reign, freight, height, veil, weigh, leisure, forfeit. "Neither" and "either" can be pronounced "ee-ther, nee-ther" or "eye-ther, nye-ther." So I guess that's why we spell them "ei" and not "ie."
The top 1000 words that have 'ie', occur collectively at a rate of over 10,000 per million words. I can only find 771 words that have 'ei', with about 5,800 occurrences pmw; 'their' accounts for almost half of these and 'being' another 900 or so. So, this rule of thumb is probably a good spelling guide.
Posted by: Brett | July 22, 2007 at 09:06 AM