Check out today’s Teatime Titbit: Tuesday Tiny Titbit: ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’
Somehow this spelling tip has always stayed with me from school and is a titbit (there’s that word again) that I’m sure the rhyme (Reim) will help you remember it too.
Think of that furry (pelzig) four legged animal called the Golden Retriever. Got the picture in your mind. Now look at the spelling/pronunciation in ‘retrieve’ (zurückholen) – ‘ie’.
Now think of a synonym for ‘get’ beginning with the letter ‘R’, are you on the ball today? (Bist du heute auf Draht?) Of course, ‘recieve’, right? Wrong, ‘receive’, is actually the correct spelling but it is pronounced exactly like our ‘retrieve’ & co.
So, say to yourself this rhyme when you want to spell ‘ceiling’, ‘conceive’, ‘deceive’, ‘perceive’, ‘receipt’ etc.
However, where there’s a rule, there are inevitably (zwangsläufig) exceptions (Ausnahmen) some common one include: ‘ancient’, ‘efficient’, ‘policies’, ‘science’, ‘society’
Hope it helps.
Thanks for sharing this rule.
Hm, when I think about it, at school we didn’t learn any cribs during our lessons. Only the well-known „he, she, it, das s muss mit“ came up.