If the rule is “I before E except after C when it ends in E”…?

I heard the rule this way: “I before E, except after C — or when sounded as A, as in neighbor and weigh”.

In most languages (maybe all lanquagues?) there are exceptions, which is where memorization comes in. 🙂

The rule is “I before E except after C when pronounced as a long E” by which the commonly construed exceptions are eliminated. e.g. eight, freight weight are pronounced as a long A; height is pronounced as a long I; leisure and seizure are followed by a phonetic Z. “Science” quite simply doesn’t count, the “i” and “e” are not pronounced together as in the above noted examples, they are pronounced separately – SCI-ence (long “i” at the end of the first syllable, short “e” at the beginning of the second syllable).

That’s just a general rule. If you had to guess on the spelling of something, use that rule. But there are exceptions on both cases.

That rule only applies for the sound of ‘ee’, as in chief, relieve, hygiene, but deceive, conceive, receive, etc. Exceptions are seize, weird, counterfeit, forfeit.

Science is correct because the inside vowel sound is not ‘ee’.

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Science is probably an exception due to its origin being Latin. Or it could be because the “i” and the “e” are in separate syllables.

not necessarily…there are just exceptions. check out the wikipedia page about it…it has lots of information on the rule

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_e_except_after_c