WORST ADVICE EVER
“I before E
except after C.”
Oh, yeah?
The
feisty foreigner seized the beige reins in one vein-bulging hand and – weirdly
adorned in leis (a veil of distraction so no one would remember his face?)
feigned disinterest no more. The heist
of his neighbor’s heir’s freight had begun.
What they
should have taught us: “I after C must follow E . . . but not literally.” (Not literally, because I’s
frequently follow C’s without an intervening E – city, cicada, scintillate – and sometimes even when an E follows – efficient.)
No wonder Johnnie can’t spell.
MORE FREE AUDIOBOOKS
Lynn Gongaware: “LibriVox – recorded by volunteers from the
public domain.”
I learned it as,
“I before E except after C,
or when it sounds like A
as in neighbor and weigh.”
It doesn’t cover everything, of course, but it does cover a lot of your examples. I also found a blog post with a way to learn some of the exceptions.