Rule breakers: "'I' before 'E' except after 'C,' and words that sound 'A' as in neighbor and weigh." Provide only one per post.

Of all the pointless threads I've ever started in off-topic, I may be starting the real winner.

So the rule states: "'I' before 'E' except after 'C,' and words that sound 'A' as in neighbor and weigh."  This has actually helped me many times, but even this is still untrue in many cases.  I've been wondering what words are actually 'E' before 'I' in spite of being pronounced in some other way and not following a 'C'.  It'd be fun to list them all.  Please name only one per post.  I'll start.

Leisure

It's not that pointless, it could come in very handy while playing Scrabble.

Eidetic (the word even ends in C to ram it's transgression home).

Hulk Hogan is Omniscient!

Interesting words there, xhonzi, though they weren't what I was going for.  "scratched" and screeched" are the longest one syllable words there are.

And TheBoost, I was expecting words that are E before I, but I did leave it open for I before E, even after C, so that was an interesting point as well.

Here is another word for you:

Either

For Welsh poets (3D lovers).

Eisteddfodic

xhonzi said:

Someone once told me there were no multisylabic words in the english language that had a single pronounced 'E' following a consonant at their end.

Adobe.

But for what it's worth, Adobe is a Spanish word that English borrowed. On top of that, I think it originated in Arabic.

English is full of that nonsense. Stupid language.

Vibrant organic eclectic language.

Bingowings said:

Vibrant organic eclectic language.

 Thats just because you're afraid of Esperanto!

I always teach my students that English is so complicated because the English people could never win a war. Seriously, if you Brits could have just stopped Caesar, or William the Conquerer, or Ivanhoe, or whoever else conquered your little island and complicated your language, I'd have a lot less irregular verbs to learn!

True we have a lot of words of Celtic, Latin, German and Norman/French etc origin but we do also have a lot of words from places we invaded too e.g. Hindi and we have a lot of words from people who came here for refuge e.g. Yiddish.

We don't attribute random genders to most inanimate objects and we don't pronounce route as rowt.

In many ways English has organically grown to perform the function that Esperanto is designed for.

Bingowings said:

Vibrant organic eclectic language.

And seconded...

darth_ender said:

Bingowings said:

Vibrant organic eclectic language.

And seconded...

 If English is so great, it's probably because what we Americans did to it.

And don't talk to me about 'rowt' if you say Lieutenant with an "f" :-P

LOL.

I took a class at the University of Arizona in...2007 I think, and it was one of the most fascinating classes I ever took called "The History of the English Language."  It was so cool and went all the way back to Proto-Indo-European and covered the phonetic changes over the millennia till coming to the present day.  I remember learning why we spell so many words the ways we do and the various influences upon our language.  Such a cool class!  I remember my teacher discussing the various "advantages" of several different languages, and I asked him, "What might be an advantage of the English language?"  He responded that no other language could express feelings with the depth and specificity that English can.  It may be obnoxious as a second language, but native speakers have what I believe to be the richest lexicon in the world to convey our ideas.

We are certainly heirs to a grand linguistic heritage.

protein

height

Already got 'either,' Davnes.  But you can change that to 'neither' and I'll look the other way ;)

Albino.

XyZ said:

doubleKO said:

height

 Wait ... Weight !

 "...and words that sound 'A' as in neighbor and weigh."

'Weight' fits the rule, I'm afraid.  'Albeit' was a good one though :)