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From: Harry Mason <spam@no.spam>
Subject: Re: Nerd Boy, episode 330
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Anonymous <guest@guest.net> wrote:
> Tom Bampton wrote in message ...
>>"Anonymous" <guest@guest.net> wrote:
>>> OK - you've heard of "'i' before 'e' except after 'c'", right ?
>>>
>>> Name as many words as you can where that rule applies.
>>> "Receive" for one...
>>> Any others, anyone ?
>>
>>friend, fiend, worried, wield, and many more.
>>
>>What ? Well, you didnt say which PART of the rule!
> 
> Smartass  ;o)
> 
> OK, so how's about the part where you get "CEI" in that order in words as
> part of the rule ?
> 
> Like in "Receive" (which is my only example)...

Unix knows all. Examples:

[harry@wraith ~]$ grep -i '[^c]ie' /usr/share/dict/words |wc -l
    1557
[harry@wraith ~]$ grep -i cei /usr/share/dict/words |wc -l
    45

including "ceiling", "conceit", "conceive", and "receipt".

Counterexamples:

[harry@wraith ~]$ grep -i '[^c]ei' /usr/share/dict/words |wc -l
    327
[harry@wraith ~]$ grep -i cie /usr/share/dict/words |wc -l
    91

including "ancient", "science", "glacier", and a *ahem* "sufficiency" of
plural forms of "-cy".

   | | |  |   |  |   |   Evidently "rules" of language are
   | | |  |   |  |   |   not always useful, as there are a
   | | |  |===|  )---(   great deal of inconsistencies. As
   |_|_|  |___|  |___|   languages go, however, English is
   \   /   ).(    [_]    incredibly rich and expressive; a
    \-/    \|/     U     simple paragraph such as this can
hjm  '      '            have many subtleties of language.

-- 
Harry Mason ("hjm200.ecs@soton@ac@uk" =~ tr/@./.@/)