Spelling is ruining the English language

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Beestie

There are things about English that bother me but spelling isn't one of them.

Stupid spelling rules bother me. Like "i before e except after c." I think I have found more exceptions to this rule than applications of it.

Yes, this is a silly rule that is a waste of time. The number of words where the sequence -cei- occurs with these letters sounding like "see" aren't that many.

Here's an interesting puzzle - how many words of this kind can we find? My list has 23 such words, derived from these five root words: ceiling, conceit (including conceive etc), deceit (including deceive etc), perceive, receipt (including receive etc). (Hmm. Looking over this list, it seems odd that "perceit" isn't a word.)

So don't waste your time with i before e except after c. You're better off just remembering these five words and their derivatives, then moving on to other spellings.