Spelling is ruining the English language

[Kingswood]

Originally Posted by Beestie

Ancient.
Sufficient.

There are several more that I'll remember later.

The "I before E except after C" rule is only intended to cover those words where the vowel sound is the same as in BEE. The number of words with this vowel sound are not much more than the five I listed plus derivatives, 23 in all.

The sequence -cie- occurs in about twice as many words. I'll save you time, as I have a word list that I can check quickly. Again, I will list root words only.

ancient, concierge, conscience, deficient, efficient, fancier, financier, glacier, hacienda, intricacies, omniscient, sufficient, prescient, proficient, science, scientist, society, species.

That list includes a variety of vowel sounds. Also in that list are several words where a weak vowel has been assimilated by the preceding consonant and changed the pronunciation of the consonant (ancient, efficient etc).