QI | 'I' Before 'E' Except After...
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- Опубликовано: 4 сен 2024
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This clip is from QI Series H, Episode 14, 'Hocus Pocus' with Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Lee Mack, Graham Norton and Daniel Radcliffe.
"Are you incapable of rational thought?" My favourite Stephen quote xD
"you Cannot Be that stupid!"
oh, Steven, never NEVER underestimate human stupidity xD
*_The Majority of the United States of America has entered the chat_*
@@Ward1706 Canada thanks you for using "United States of" there. :)
Says the man who decided to wear that ridiculous looking headwear
@@Ward1706 entirety*
This feels like a monty python sketch
Another pythonesque one is, “🎶They say of the acropolis where the Parthenon is...🎶”
@@travisinthetrunk that one is almost viking spam level
more like abbot and costello
Yes!
Society of putting things on top of other things?
Yeah man :D
"Oh I see." was unintentionally brilliant.
im not sure it was unintentional
It was intentional alright!
@@RJF8888 I can tell you're a fun person
Completely unintentional and not at all brilliant
It was absolutely intentional.
“I’m looking for the ones I’m looking for”
Sean Grand
“Is this the party to whom I am speaking ...?”
These are not the ones you are looking for.
Ah yes, the floor is made out of floor
and the ceiling is made of ceiling
The deleted scene from a new hope
"I may explode at any minute" XDDD
"Daniel, you're the only person on this show who isn't a complete idiot" judging by his facial expressions throughout, I think that's true but only because he kept quiet XDD
Better to stay quiet and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
I think that's exactly what he says in the episode after this clip ends xD
Have you seen Daniel Radcliffe talk about the worlds oldest magic trick earlier in this show, naming the Egyptian scrool the trick was first mentioned in ? He certainly doesn't come across as stupid!
cucumber is right, when they don't cut the clip short Daniel does say something about he was just keeping quiet because he didn't know either.
@@chibikomeh It's not often that one gets to use the phrase "cucumber is right" without sounding completely bonkers xD
There is also the word ceiling.
Yeah. I'm surprised Stephen didn't consider that.
lmao what's the actual word
And “weird”
you still have the old google+ profile pic?
STEADINGS
“You cannot be that stupid?!” Don’t challenge them!!
He had him deceived.
Lee: Hold my pint...
Reminds me of Alan's "i couldn't possibly sink as low as Stephen's expectations of me" xD
It’s right up there with “this can’t get worse” 😂
"Oh, I see." Never before has that phrase seemed to upset anyone as much as it angered Stephen.
I think it was "Oh, I C" actually, still not sure where the E comes into it though...
It should have been "Ee, I see".
Stephen gets annoyed at Lee more than he likely ever got at Alan.
Griffin Reviews. They way Alan and Lee say anything is completely different: non-verbally or physically, as well as the tone and timbre of their voices 🎙🎭
Lee Mack's style is combative it is part of his routine to wind up everyone where as Alan has been in the game (comedy & QI) a long time and knows how it works
Lee is fantastic. He is absolutely hilarious on WILTY.
Because Alan is actually competent beneath it all. Lee on the other hand...
@@donniedouglas6837 I agree Lee is more suited to that type of game show
Alan had a legit point when he said some of them weren't even English words and Stephen just steamrollered right over top of him; he deserved at least a point for saying something the Elves had apparently forgotten about.
But they are used in English, no? so they ARE English words.
Phil Immerfall they could either be loan words or borrowed parts. .... that’s the English language in a nutshell lol
Yeah words like _hacienda_ or _Madeira_ should be nowhere close to the top of the list of good examples to debunk this rule of thumb. And if they are, then the rule is actually a pretty good one.
@@siukong Apart from "species", the other three "cie" examples on the board are pretty terrible examples, because the I and E and "concierge", "hacienda" and "glacier" are so clearly differentiated in their pronunciation you don't particularly need a rule to tell you which order to shove them in.
@@eIucidate Paper is so obviously different from plastic, you don't particularly need a sign to tell you which recycling bin to shove it in. Or you might as well just put the sign for plastic over the bin for paper too, 'cause the plastic sign _obviously_ doesn't apply to the bin for paper, I mean look at it; it's so clearly full of paper!
This is how I imagine Lee Mack was as a kid in school, he must have drove his teachers insane.
driven
@@simonr-vp4if OIC.
@@simonr-vp4if either or
Either/ or. 'He must have driven' (conditional tense)/ 'He drove. (Past tense). 'He must have drove' is mixing tenses, and so is grammatically incorrect.
I will never forget, there was this moment in my seventh grade class. My teacher just happened to reiterate that rule, I before e except after c, And then one kid just happened to say "except for neighbor and weigh." A period of silence followed. One clever kid just happened to say, "That's weird!" I picked up on her intelligence and followed through with, "And Foreign!" The whole class caught up at that point and we all started cracking up naming more and more exceptions to the rule.
There’s a website, think it was merriam Webster but I’m not sure, that had a “rhyme” for all the exceptions for “I before e” and it was probably about 20 lines long, with the last line basically saying “or whenever the English language decides”
And everybody clapped!
That kid's name...?
oh yeah! I learned it as "...except when like A as in neighbor and weigh" but that was it, only slightly less inaccurate...
And 'reiterate'
Daniel, Lee AND Graham on one episode, I gotta watch this one! 😍
The point is that it’s I before E, except after C, when the sound is /i:/ (“ee”), for which there are far fewer exceptions, especially not counting inflected forms like ‘fancied’.
I before e except after c and sounded as a as in neighbor and weigh.
That is the full saying, and it annoys me people just leave out part of the rule and then call it a bad rule
@@Akakiryuushin Weird.
@@Akakiryuushin Trying to remember such a long and convoluted rule is not worth the trouble, so yes I'd still say it's a bad rule.
To be fair, "I before E except after C" is a pretty confusing way to formulate a grammar rule.
English is a fairly easy language in general, so you complicate the rules to make it seem more difficult hehe
It's easy because there are so few rules, and those we have make absolutely no sense and are little more than the equivalent of "because I said so, now be quiet!!!" of an exasperated parent losing their rag with one of their spawn.
@@peterclarke7240 Indeed. I've been teaching English as a second language for over ten years and the thing that makes it difficult for students is the inconsistency of the pronunciation. Most everything else is either the same or easier than other languages.
@@acmiguens I don't agree. For me English was extremely difficult when I started learning it. It is not only the extremely random spelling and pronounciation but also in grammar there are a lot of difficulties.
@@ankavoskuilen1725 The difficulty will vary from student to student, no doubt. I'm from Brazil, where we can't seem to get people to get better at English. Why? Most teachers can't teach. Either they don't know what they're supposed to teach or they just vomit grammar and hope the students will understand. There are a few exceptions that prove the rule. So maybe at least part of your difficulty was not your fault at all :)
Difficult when you're spelling 'ice'.
Yeah, the way to remember that one is "I before C, and then the E"
Touché...
iecei.
Did I get it?
Don't forget when your weird neighbor Keith goes to his foreign sleigh riding club.
Yeah, but there's no C in any of those words, though
Exactly
@@beavisbutt-headson3223 so why isn't the I before the E?
@@JohnSmith-us4pj wooosh.
Because it isn't!!! This is why I struggled in school...
I laughed with tears when I watched the full episode and now again, I can't stop laughing! I adore them all- Lee, Graham, Daniel, Alan and of course Stephen. What a wonderful moment that was😂😂😂😂
I always hang around to the end of the QI videos, just to piss off Sandi. Totally worth it. 👍
And it was at this very point you can see Stephen start contemplating life after QI.
This and the acropolis segment are the most hilarious clips ever.
This is Stephen’s breaking point on QI 😂
Sort of like Sandi when she tells Bill Bailey to "shut the f*ck up"
But what do they say about the Acropolis where the Parthenon is?
@@Harambae613 That there are no straight lines.
@@c0ldc0ne whateva
"I'm looking for the ones I'm looking for" aren't we all?
The moment I saw this, my brain on instinct screamed "CEILING, STEPHEN"
"I before E except after C" is still a perfectly good principle to remember when you're trying to spell a word where it doesn't help to just sound it out.
They give the word "Being" as an example of a word which breaks the rule, and so does the word "science", but you can obviously tell how they're spelt by sounding them out. It's still helpful to remember sometimes if you're trying to spell "ceiling" or "receipt", even if it's not really a hard rule.
Height, weight?
@@JLBat1993 the rest of the rule goes unless it sounds like 'a' like in neighbor and weigh. Height is a weird one.
...............or just stick with "sound it out" instead of this convoluted "it's good enough except when it's not but even then it's still good enough but sound it out if not even though it is"
Thing is, they don't look at _why_ the words break the rule. Being isn't "one" word per se. It is be and the ing-ending. It's an edge case, where one could rightly dispute that it is for good reason an exception. Science comes from latin. A language which heavily influenced languages that are well known for their exceptions to the rules, even in their own languages, than their adherence. Loanwords obviously can't count, as they are typically an offset for language evolution. I wonder how much percent of words that evolved from the germanic language there are that adhere to the rule and wether the rule would be correct if we looked at those.
@@Finsternis.. This is nonsense. Virtually all words in the English language were originally loan words. Serpent comes from French, but no one doubts that it's now an English word. The only difference is how recently something came over from another language. Recent loanwords aren't as readily accepted as part of the language in their own right, but they are. There are no reliable rules of pronunciation in English, that's just a fact.
Well, duh. The rule, such as it is, is "'i' before 'e', except after 'c', **when the sound is 'ee'."**
So, of the supposed "exceptions" on the screens at 1:44, "concierge", "weird", "glacier", "Madiera", "hacienda", "weir" and "being" are not exceptions at all. Nor is "their", which is probably the most common "false exception" but which isn't shown there; nor is "veil" which Stephen mentions. "Species" and "caffeine" are the only two of the nine that are exceptions to the full rule.
"seize" is probably the most famous exception.
The rule I was taught was "when the sound is ee, it's i before e except after c". The first bit is critical.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was taught. They really dropped the ball on this one.
"... except after _c,_ or when sounded like 'ay' as in _neighbor_ and _weigh."_
Of course, _weird_ is a famous counterexample. But then, it is weird.
Exactly. The rule isn't supposed to encompass every single word that has I and E.
They had 'being' as one of the words that breaks the rule. Almost like they're being intentionally difficult.
@@hinney827
But everyone is now taught the rule "I before e except after c."
The fact that there is a similar, but different, older rule that works better is irrelevant.
Though certainly would've been nice if they had mentioned it.
@@alansmithee419 the older rule is still taught to some. A lot of people just get lazy with ratings sayings and cut out the last and usually most important part.
I before E except after C, and when sounding like "A" as in neighbor and weigh, and on weekends and holidays and all throughout may and YOU'LL ALWAYS BE WRONG NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!
The rule I was always taught as "I before E, except after C, **when the sound is EE".** So "neighbour", "weigh", and all the words mentioned in the clip except "species" and "caffeine" aren't exceptions.
@@beeble2003that's wierd innit?
@@asheep7797 The vowel in "weird" is a diphthong, "ee-er", not a pure "ee" sound. So it doesn't fit the "when the sound is ee" clause.
@@beeble2003 It does if you don't have an acute understanding of the precise nature of vowel sounds in English, which since the rule is intended to teach children to spell I'd say "weird" is absolutely a valid exception.
"i" before "e", except after "c", or when the sound is long "a" as in "neighbor and "weigh". The rule works well enough to teach early elementary children how to spell words that are going to be commonly found in their grade level books. By the time they are learning the exceptions, they are old enough to assimilate why those words are exceptions. When I taught first, second, and third grades, I used, not just that rhyme, but also others AND a very large book of simple songs that taught basic phonics rules. It was adorable to watch them...when they'd come across a word, they'd sing the song and then read it correctly.
When they said, “I before e except after c” it sounded weird because they didn’t finish it.
I never learnt that rhyme, but I learnt "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." And then this is an exception to that, which only applies when i and e make an "ee" sound.
@@Jivvi--I learned that one, too. Many years later, when my youngest child was learning to read, her version of it ran like this: When two vowels go a-walkin', the first one does the talkin' cause the second one is too shy. And then she'd all but blush in shyness. It was so cute to see.
I'm such a big Harry Potter fan! It's the guy who read the audiobooks!
I can't listen to his version because I recognise the voice from too many things. I prefer Jim Dale's version :)
@@treyk9007 as in 'it is so bad' or 'it is the best ever'?
@@treyk9007 I second gvr beers question. dou you mean ruined as in its amazing or terrible?
@@treyk9007 Personally I love stephen fry to bits but I hate his harry potter audiobooks because he just can't do the female voices, he has two voices for female characters and they are both extremely irritating. I know doing good voices for the other gender is very tricky but its so crucial a skill in audiobook narration that I just can't enjoy his ones.
@@acmiguens At least he doesnt say voldey's name and make it too french sounds like more instead or mort.
If I remember rightly this was Daniel’s first appearance on the show, and I vaguely recall Stephen later said, rather apologetically, that at first he’d resisted having him on, as he’d felt that although he’d undoubtedly be a big name draw, he wasn’t as sure that he’d be Quite Interesting material. He was very pleasantly surprised!
I think that was John Lloyd, in "The Making of QI" (2011).
I always understood it to be the first part of a forgotten rhyme: "I before E, except after C, or as an A, like in neighbour and weigh" not sure if it holds up 100% that way but it seems to make more sense
that does make sense but then there’s words like weird that doesn’t fit
@@strawbbymillie yeah but that's just a weird word, isn't it? 😉
This is one of my favourite QI clips. Just a great atmosphere.
I see this popping up in my subscriptions and almost immediately my brain set itself onto the Lee Mack setting and kept repeating 'CEILING!'
Lee is actually really intelligent, but he is deliberately pissing Stephen off.
He is super intelligent, but I do think he is actually having a bit of a brain fart here just like i was the entire time
@@felixperrin3795 yeah but there must have been a bit of deliberate pissing-off.
He is but like anyone he gets confused sometimes, possibly he’s had a long day. I think he started off genuinely trying, got lost, started to just troll instead, then had regrets, but as he’s quite a good actor it’s hard to know.
@@Lumibear. I think that's probably how it went too. I think he was genuinely confused initially. But then he realized part way through and just kept up the gag.
He's quick witted, but I don't think he's a deep thinker.
This is like "Who's on first" for grammar nerds
Ok, but who is on first?
@@user-rh7nd5xv7y who
What?
@@user-rh7nd5xv7y He's on second
@@TheWildmanden Who's on second?
Ceiling!
No, it's Cieling!
@@Luigiman-rc9fi Is it ceyling?
Charlie Tuff Sealing
Love it when Lee breaks out the Forsyth impression!
Please bring back Daniel he was marvellous at it!!
I before E except after C is a great rule; it's scientifcally proven to be accurate ;-)
I see what you did there, and I like it 😂
Lee Mack needs to do that Bruce Forsyth impression more often.
'Oh I see' 🤣🤣🤣
Isn't it e i c 😂 wait no... c i e.... No, c e i
I was taught 'I before e except after c where the sound is ee. There is still many exceptions, but a lot less than there are without the extra bit (so weight, height etc follow the rule)
Lee Mack channelling his inner Phill Jupitus to annoy Stephen Fry as much as possible on one single QI subject.
Dan just casually showing off his chest hair...
It’s “I before e” except after “c”, or when sounding like “A”, as in “neighbor” and “weigh”- many people omit the second line.
This little segment is just joyful.
The 'e' comes after 'c' as a means to soften the 'c', as with the 'e' after 'g' in 'George'.
Oh, interesting.
It's difficult to pick 'the best' QI segment, but this is certainly up there.
From reading the comments here, I'm astounded how many people are so tightly wound that they can't just enjoy this clip for its purely comic value.
After all, QI is a COMEDY program first and foremost, not an educational program. (If you learn something, consider it a bonus)
The panel consists predominantly of COMEDIANS.
Comedians are wont to 'milk' any situation for all they can.
Stephen explained this in such a terrible way I can see why Lee Mack found it hard to understand :D
I think he was counting on ‘I before e’ to be well known enough that he didn’t have to explain that bit.
mack got it, you can tell, cos if he didnt, he wouldnt have been talking. his whole comedy style depends on being argumentative
I tihnk maybe Lee just doesn't know how to spell ceiling.
@@Hoganply
You mean cieling
Actually, Alan talked over Stephen when he was trying to explain it, so it wasn't quite as clear.
This is comedy gold
Absolute classic clip. Surprised it only got uploaded this late
I am not gonna lie. At 2:33 is when it got real for me, and when Stephen asked 'You can't be this stupid?', I was.
Efficiency, probably the first word that comes to mind when breaking the rule.
"I before E, except after C; what a strange society..."
To disprove the rule, it's sufficient to have one counterexample
I before E EXCEPT after C! And when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh, and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May! And you'll always be wrong no matter what you say!
Brian Regan?
That's a tough rule
I before E except after C, when the sound is "ee" is a rule that works pretty well in practice.
It's still a good rule, it's just shorthand for "i before e, except after c, when the sound is "ee", except for plural words, and except for words of recent foreign origin (French, Spanish etc.)".
We were taught this basic principle when we were in Grade 4 Primary School. Our English teacher used to say, "there is an exception to every rule", and how right she was!
I before E, except after C, or when sounded like “a” as in neighbor or weigh. That’s what I was taught
I was first taught "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking," and then, as a rare exception to that, only in the very specific situation where e and i make an "ee" sound "i before e except after c. The vast majority of the supposed exceptions aren't in that category, so the rule is irrelevant.
"I before E, except after C, where the sound is EE" was the rule I was taught.
yes same here
Yep that is the rule that should be taught, probably is taught but most remember jut the first part of the rule.
And there are exception to these after C part of the rule.
Not only that, but Stephen's counter-examples are all dipthongs, so not even within the scope of the rule. And as Alan points out, loan words, so again not within the scope of the rule.
@@daddymuggle Weird.
@@daddymuggle This is nonsense. Virtually all words in the English language were originally loan words. Serpent comes from French, but no one doubts that it's now an English word. The only difference is how recently something came over from another language. Recent loanwords aren't as readily accepted as part of the language in their own right, but they are. There are no reliable rules of pronunciation in English, that's just a fact.
This clip is from the M series, the last series to be presented by Fry. Coincidence?
Yes. Yes it is.
Series H according to the info.
Coincience
No it isn't. It's from the H Series.
One of my favourite episodes
"Are you incapable of rational thought?" asks the man dressed as a shriner that's about to hop into a tiny car.
*klaxon* Wearing a fez and driving tiny cars is the Shriners, not the Masons.
@@SavageGreywolf Fixed.
@@SavageGreywolf Shriners are old, high ranking Masons.
TBF fezzes are cool. Or so a physician friend of mine told me.
This is one of my favourite bits in qi
I learnt the rule as I before e except after c when the sound is eee.
From a linguistic point of view it makes perfect sense, distinguishing words of Anglo Saxon origin and French origin.
Weird.
@@drafezard7315
Weird is not pronounced eee as in ceiling, neither in northern or southern British accent.
Very funny. As are the comments. Stephen initially said there were 923 words with c i e before subsequently saying there were 923 exceptions (which is not the same thing). However this only adds to the enjoyment
It's all fun and games until your weird neighbor Keith buys eight beige reindeer.
When you find that 923 words violate the most famous spelling dictum, you suddenly feel less adamant towards typos.
I before E except... When you run a feisty heist on your weird beige foreign neighbour
I love everyone who appears in this video.
Isn’t the full “rule”: I before e except after c when the sound is e?
Exactly! "I before E except after C IN AN E SOUND"
I recall "I before e, except after c, except as in ā as in neighbor and weigh."
@Mario The rhyme only had the ā exception, but there are so many more!
@Mario We're talking about English! The rules were made to be broken!
Yes. They got this one completely wrong.
The main rule is that two vowels pronounced together make the sound that the first vowel makes when it's on its own. This rule is an exception to that, which only applies to words where an i and an e make an "ee" sound.
Caffeine is an exception, but weir and weird are just following the normal rule because they don't make that sound. For most of the others, even that rule isn't relevant, because the vowels are pronounced separately.
2:45 "O I C"
Fantastic! I can’t stop laughing... 😂😂😂
I wish QI was around when I was in primary school. I had a year long argument with my teacher about how she was wrong to teach this despite proving it to her many times. She would always hit out with - but that word is French, German etc.. which I always said in return to her "the whole English language is made from words from other countries. I always remember that it started in the maths lesson after the English lesson where she taught us this then asked a question about 2 freight trains
The interesting thing about Lee’s example is that sky in French is “ciel”. It’s probably not related to “ceiling” but it’s close enough to be annoying.
Interestingly enough they both have their root in the Latin "caelum" which means heaven or sky!
Can anyone think of a counterexample where the ie/ei makes a plain “ee” sound? “Weird” is an “ee-er” sound, “hacienda” is an “ee-eh” sound. For words like “ceiling” and “piece” the rule seems to work fine. Maybe that’s why nobody could think of counterexamples; we associate the rule with the “ee” sound.
“Seize” is basically always pronounced with the same “ee” /iː/ as in words like “fleece” as far as I can tell.
Burning Elsen Ah, true!
They're all genuinely acting like naughty school children 😆
I'm hung over and I'm struggling to keep up 🤣
I before e, except after c, and when sounding like a, as in neighbour and weigh, and on weekends and holidays and all throughout may, and you'll always be wrong NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!
I feel this sums up QI quite well.
Imbecullen
@@blackice7317 MOOSEN!
When I was young, I had a lot of trouble with the word “ancient” because of that rule
I had trouble with "either". Depending how you pronounce it, it both is an exception and isn't.
Was just waiting for Daniel to say, "They're all the same to me. I have dyslexia."
Interesting choice to edit the thumbnail to feature both Graham and Daniel - one which I must say, worked on me. Good video as well.
Graham: O I C... levels on that one 😅
I always learned "I before E except after C or when sounding like A as in neighbor or weigh"
The version I learned was:
"i before e except after c - whenever the sound is "EE"
Which works the same way, but I suspect that most people either don't remember - or weren't taught in the first place - the second half of the rule.
And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May. And you'll always be wrong no matter what you say
@@aussiebloke609 I learned the "sounding like A" version. But the version you got is much better because it covers words like "ancient" and "science"!
@@aussiebloke609 The words "weird" and "caffeine" (among others) still prove that rule to be false.
@@JimC The "rule" is still worthless, because there are still a ton of counterexamples. The word "species", for example. Sound is "ee", and yet it's an "i" before an "e" after "c".
Only David Mitchell can truly contend with Lee Mack
The full rhyme is “when these letters rhyme with ‘bee’ it’s ’i’ before ‘e’ etc
"Oh I C!"
The full, and mostly accurate saying I was taught for normal words (not proper names)
"I before E except after C in syllables rhyming with B".
That's from the 1970s.
I love this bit..
For those who still can't understand the rule:
The rule is that if the consonant is 'C' it must have 'E' and then an 'I' after it (eg 'CEI'ling, de'CEI't etc)
Two ways to break the rule:
1) If we can find words with 'C' but has 'I' then an 'E' (eg gla'CIE'r or spe'CIE's)
2) If we can find 'other letters' that has 'E' and then an 'I' after it (eg 'WEI'rd or 'BEI'ng: only 'C' could have '-IE' but W and B has it here in these words too thus breaking the rule).
So Stephen's point is that we can find more words that break the rule than the words that conform to the rule.
I know... you're welcome 💁🏻♂️
Norton "Hurry up". Very amusing
I always heard the rule as "I before E, except after C, when the sound is 'eee'". Which is almost worse because there are still plenty of exceptions (like weird) and the rule is getting more and more complicated to the point where it's not actually useful any more.
This is the funniest QI I've seen yet.
Lee Mack sealing his fate, you can't win going up against QI.
*ceiling his fate
I bet many people still don't understand what Stephen Fry is getting at and exactly why Mack was so confused.
@@Tridentus The I before E is the rule, the before C part is the exception. If there is no C then the exception doesn't come into play, just the rule applies. The point was that more words break the rule than uphold it.
@@bren106 I'm sorry, but you didn't get it either. The "after C" (not before) part is not the exception, it's just part of the rule. The rule is "I before E, except after C", which means that words containing bie, die, fie, gie, hie, ..., wie, zie, or *cei* are _according_ to the rule. And words containing bei, dei, fei, gei, hei, ..., wei, zei, or *cie* are _exceptions_ to the rule. But there are more of the latter, so the rule is silly, which was the point Stephen made.
But I admit the video is a bit confusing, as in the beginning they only seem to discuss the "except C" part, i.e. only words that either have cei (that are adhering to the rule) or cie (that are the exceptions). Only later, and only shortly, they discuss the words that have, e.g., wie (adhering) or wei (exceptions). So maybe this was also the reason why Lee Mack was so confused about that.
I before E, except in the English alphabet, when listing the vowels (AEIOU), in the spelling of many words of the English language, or when singing 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm'.
"are you incapable of rational thought?" - have you seen Would I Lie To You? "Seriously, the idea of using numbers to denote temperature is new to you?"
I before E except after C is only half the rule.
It is "I before E except after C, or when sounded like 'a' as in Neighbor and Weigh".
I loved it when Lee Mack, Phil Jupitus, Jimmy Carr & Bill Bailey would wind Stephen up. He always blundered into their traps!
Irony is, Lee's rant about Stephen's "Bruce Forsythe" charm is that a lot of the time, Brucie was often quite patronising, maybe for comic effect, but, watching some old Price is Right now and then, my goodness he could be a mean one, so Stephen's perfectly accurate in his Brucie Bollocking!!! :P
TBF lee’s, and Graham’s confusion comes from the saying. They are assuming it means after the letter C it’s always E I rather than, it’s E I unless they follow the letter C.
This part always makes me laugh.