Many criticisms of the rule completely ignore the usual restriction to a single long-E sound, which greatly reduces the occurrence of exceptions. Why would you even apply the rule to “eight” if there’s no way you’d swap those two letters?
(Also, it’s language. Even if simplistic rules weren’t already ruined by centuries of arbitrary usage, you can still break any rule you want just by coining a new word.)
English spelling being consistent is the lie! I before E except after C, except when that rule doesn’t apply.
English is an exceptional language, because of all the exceptions to the rules in it.
Many criticisms of the rule completely ignore the usual restriction to a single long-E sound, which greatly reduces the occurrence of exceptions. Why would you even apply the rule to “eight” if there’s no way you’d swap those two letters?
(Also, it’s language. Even if simplistic rules weren’t already ruined by centuries of arbitrary usage, you can still break any rule you want just by coining a new word.)
I before E except after C or when sounding like A as in neighbor or weigh. Weird.
It’s also the *only* number spelled in alphabetic order (in English).