Frazz by Jef Mallett for March 08, 2019

I’ve heard there are so many exceptions to the I before E rule, that they stopped actually teaching it as a rule.

More of a convention than a rule in any case.

It’s good to be the omniscient cartoonist!

I read somewhere once that there are more exceptions to that rule than examples.

Another ‘Not invented here’.

I before E except after C. Anything else is weird.

“Keister” is a really bad example, though, since it’s not actually English.

He knows his kids.

Mallett has made fun of that “rule” many times before, like when Mrs. Olsen complained that that new kid Keith Stein didn’t respect the rule.

The full rule is “I before E except after C unless it sounds like A”. This means that words like neighbour (with or without the U), sleigh and weight aren’t exceptions. Non-English words like Rottweiler or keister do muddle things up further.

Once you include the “unless it sounds like A” part there are far fewer exceptions.

Frazz’s answer was going to be neutral, no matter the question

I believe “keister” is Yiddish, and so the rule would not apply.

And he is glad that was her question.

Beware the etymological psychopath.

Well, somebody should’ve mentioned this rule to whoever invented the alphabet.

English is filled with words from other languages that did not have their spellings changed when they were included, and so do not follow the standard rules. “English” itself was the language of the Angles, a Germanic tribe that conquered most of Britain (to hear the closest thing to Ancient British, listen to Welsh) – what we speak now was greatly changed during the Norman Conquest and afterward as the naval power and exploration of England (and so the number of peoples and languages the English encountered) grew.

I’m just glad Charles Schulz never drew the Keister Beagle.

From Nash Bridges, Cheech Marin (wanting to borrow money for his latest scheme) to Nash to start:Hey, Nash-man! – NO! – Hey, I never even asked the question, so how do you know the answer? – Well, that’s the beauty of it Bubba: even though I don’t know the question, I know the answer, and the answer is NO!

PostsFrazz17 hrs ·

All right, spelling and grammar sticklers*, come clean: You’ve always wanted to make a sausage from pork-butt and call it keister-wiener, just for the symmetry. Right?

_____________

*of which I am one, insisting on not giving in to the “alright” devolution.

I before E except when your feisty foreign neighbor Keith leisurely receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from caffeinated atheist weightlifters…A pretty weird rule if you ask me.

Or when you run a feisty heist on a weird beige foreign neighbor ….