A Revised Spelling Rule

In the February 1974 issue of Word Ways, Ramona J. Quincunx examined in some detail the ability of the venerable rule Place I before E except after C, or when sounded like A as in neighbor or weight to predict correctly the spelling of a myriad of IE- or EI-diphthong words in English. She concluded that a new jingle, probably longer than the original one, was needed to more accurately describe the vagaries of English orthography. It is the purpose of this article to present such a jingle, and to compare its performance to the original one in a more-or-less objective manner