Did you know?

There are 923 words in the English language that break the "i before e" rule. Only 44 words follow rule.

This is according to the the BBC's QI television show in which a fan generated the figure according to a Scrabble wordlist.

The Oxford Dictionaries website of Oxford University Press states "The rule only applies when the sound represented is ‘ee’, though. It doesn’t apply to words like science or efficient, in which the –ie- combination does follow the letter c but isn’t pronounced ‘ee’." (Source: Wikipedia)

Basically, there are far too many exceptions to this rule to make it an actual rule. I still find myself reciting it when using words like "receive" and "perceive". But, yes, I think this one is going the same way as the dinosaurs.