Why is the name “Keith” spelt with “ei”, instead of “ie” ?
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Neil sounds like kneel –
Keith sounds like Keeth
In local language the ei actually sounds like eye when written apart. Though in a word in English its ‘ee’ this must be double dutch because in dutch its not sounding like that at all.
ie is ee and ei is eye so its a problem in the english language pronouciation and nothing else.
Spelling would be i before e except after c
that’s the way I learned.
either, neither, caffeine, codeine, counterfeit, foreign, forfeit, height, leisure, protein, their, weird, seize, seizure, seize, sheikh, leisure, ancient, fierce, lieutenant
Although it’s interesting that weird was originally spelled wierd. Caffeine is french, as is counterfeit.
It seems that etymology has much to do with the spelling of the words. As a general rule, it usually works and shouldn’t be discounted.
Anyway, as the last dude said, the rule only works on words that sound like “ay”, like “sleigh” or “weigh”.
So i guess it’s i before e except after c but not when it sounds like “ay”.
It would cause a change in pronunciation.
Think about ALL the words that have “ei” without the whole “c” thing.
One day in class, my teacher looked through the ditionary and only found TWO words that followed that rule.
I forget what they were but yeah. . .