Reply to post: Re: I before E except after C and except when it sounds like A as in "neighbor" and "weigh"

Re: I before E except after C and except when it sounds like A as in "neighbor" and "weigh"

And BTW, words like "ancient" and "science" that supposedly break the "except after C" exception I believe are also diphthongs, with the I and E belonging to different syllables. In the case of "ancient" and similar words (like "prescient", "omniscience", etc.), we tend to pronounce the CIENT as "shent" though this is probably a corruption of "si" followed by a distinct "ent".