The rules
Improve your spelling in a million handy steps
It’s nearly impossible to go through school in the United States without learning, at some point, the spelling mnemonic “i before e, except after c.” Generations of children have recited this under their breath during spelling bees and tests, clutching it like drowning victims to a lifeline, trusting it to save them.
It’s a perfectly fine rule, except when it’s not. You probably know the longer version - “…or when sounded like a/as in neighbor and weigh.” A minute’s thought will turn up even more exceptions. (Wikipedia lists a further mnemonic for some of these: “Let neither financier inveigle the sheikh into seizing either species of weird leisure.”)
If you know “i before e,” you may also have learned some other handy spelling mnemonics, too. “When -ing comes to stay, little e runs away” describes how take becomes taking and make becomes making - but doesn’t do so well when die becomes dying.
Spelling mnemonics like these have a problem - not just that they aren’t universal, but that they don’t provide the one thing that spellers of English desperately want: logic. English spelling is deeply illogical; the language’s magpie nature and long history mean that there are multiple competing spellings for many of the sounds of English: The “long a” sound of neighbor and weigh can be spelled not only “ei,” but also “ai,” “ay,” “ea” (as in steak), “ee” (as in matinee), “ey” (obey), “ie” (lingerie), “ae” (Gaelic). With so many exceptions, you can’t really call “i before e” - or any other spelling rule - a rule.
But bad spellers shouldn’t despair. There are plenty of mnemonics that don’t overgeneralize and work perfectly when needed. Many of the best, and the most entertaining, try to impose a veneer of logic by forcing an association or connection onto a problematic word: How many of us have heard “Your principal is (or “is not”, depending on your school) your pal,” with “pal” being the tipoff that it’s principal, not principle. Rules like this tickle the “Just-So” parts of our brains which want to have an “aha!” explanation for everything, no matter how contrived or specious.
Some are almost painfully simple: Too has too many o’s to be to. There is a place, just like here; but you hear with your ear. And if there are no heirs, it is not theirs. (This last one presupposes you often confuse there/their but are perfectly comfortable with the word heir, which may be unlikely.)
Some rules play on natural human greed: If you want a piece of pie, do you want a little, or a lot? (Since you wouldn’t write “alittle,” you shouldn’t write “alot”.) The tricky word dessert has quite a few mnemonics to help you distinguish it from desert: You always want seconds (that is, a second s) for dessert. Desserts make you fat, deserts thin. I’d rather have two desserts than a desert.
Some of these rules have striking imagery: Separate has a parachute in it; Cemetery has three e’s because you scream “e-e-e” when walking past one. Some are self-referential: Accommodate is broad enough to accommodate two c’s and two m’s. Some presuppose a little knowledge of the world: The island of Crete is a discrete part of Greece. Even with a license, you need a car (the letter c) before you can speed (the letter s). Sometimes they ask questions: R you one to harass? (only one “r” in harass); sometimes they make statements: We are weird. K is the letter of knowledge. Sometimes they give advice: When necessary, wear one cap (c) and two socks (s). And some wax philosophical, as in “There is a lie in the middle of believe and belief” (or, more kindly, you would never believe a lie).
Practically any frequently misspelled word lends itself to this treatment, with a little ingenuity - even misspelled itself: Please, miss, could you help me spell misspelled?
Not only do these rules force the wayward spellings of English into some kind of order, they also have the advantage of being able to be completely internalized. Once you learn them, they’re yours forever: No reference books or fancy electronic tools are required. Even Raphael Mudge, the developer of the popular After the Deadline spell-check plugin for WordPress blogs, relies on a few spelling mnemonics. “I always have trouble with words that are similar in spelling and meaning but are used in different contexts, like affect and effect. I know now that affect is the action and effect is what happened.”
It doesn’t matter how “easy” the word is - sometimes you just have trouble with it. And rest assured that someone, somewhere has come up with a useful mnemonic. My favorite comes from screenwriter Jane Espenson (who has written for “Battlestar Galactica” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”): “Speech isn’t ‘speach’ because no one has that much to say about peaches.”
E-mail Erin McKean at mailtheword@gmail.com. For past columns, go to www.boston.com/ideas. 
