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"I before E" is a common mnemonic that is taught for spelling certain English words, but this mnemonic is often wrong, as pointed out in this Language Log post.

The aim of this question is to create the longest grammatical English sentence with non-repeating words (each word can only be used once in the entire sentence) which contains the maximum number of words that violate the "I before E" rule, without resorting to quotations, numbers over ten, or proper nouns.

Sentences will be scored by the number of violations, minus the number of non-violations (includes words which don't include "ie" or "ei").

Example:

Caffeinated atheists reinvent their weird foreign neighbours(7-0=7)

Caffeinated atheists reinvent their blue foreign neighbours(6-1=5)

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  • $\begingroup$ I was taught: "I before E except after C or when sounding like AY as in NEIGHBOR/NEIGHBOUR and WEIGH." That would mean that NEIGHBOUR is not a violation. $\endgroup$
    – Paul Rowe
    Mar 3, 2015 at 18:12
  • $\begingroup$ @PaulRowe There are lots of variations in the presentation of the rule, because it is such a terrible one. By some counts, there are more exceptions to the (unmodified) rule than there are valid examples. $\endgroup$
    – KSmarts
    Mar 3, 2015 at 18:38
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    $\begingroup$ @MarchHo I would venture a guess that this is downvoted because the answers are all going to be either ridiculous sentences that no human would ever use and are, therefore, hecka confusing OR they're going to be snarky distortions of the rules. $\endgroup$
    – Engineer Toast
    Mar 3, 2015 at 20:16
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    $\begingroup$ @EngineerToast And whose fault is that second part? $\endgroup$
    – KSmarts
    Mar 3, 2015 at 20:32
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    $\begingroup$ I’m voting to close this question because open-ended puzzles are off-topic $\endgroup$
    – bobble
    May 7, 2021 at 14:26

3 Answers 3

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I've got 44-7=37

Eighty feisty, ableit dreich, reigning sovereign sheikhs' heirs, deifing society, inveigled a weird foreign leisurely scientist's fanciest eight rottweilers to forfeit sufficient obeisance, veiling a heinous seismic gneiss vein heist, wherein they abseiled heights of neighboring ancient lithofacies, heigh-ho-ing their weighty freight with beige greige skeins, later efficiently surfeiting on stupefacient codeine.

Basically, a bunch of rich kids charmed some dogs and stole a bunch of rocks, and then OD'd on painkillers.

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1,752 - 5 = 1,747

With inspiration from warspyking:

My favorite words include abseil, abseiled, abseiling, abseils, absenteeism, absenteeisms, ... , zein, zeins, zeitgeber, zeitgebers, zeitgeist, and zeitgeists.

It's the entire list except for eighteen, eighteens, eightfold, eighties, and eighty due to the "no numbers over 10" rule.

I realize this is a snarky response but it's a grammatically correct sentence that meets the current requirements of the question.

The only higher scores I can think of either include numbers over 10 (a rule added to prevent other snarky responses) or are variations on the sentence that uses less words. For instance, "[List] are all words." or even "[List] are words."

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  • $\begingroup$ It looks like the rules need to include use-mention distinction. Also, I don't think "..." is 1755 words. $\endgroup$
    – KSmarts
    Mar 3, 2015 at 20:10
  • $\begingroup$ @KSmarts I didn't want to type every word in the list. $\endgroup$
    – Engineer Toast
    Mar 3, 2015 at 20:11
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    $\begingroup$ It's not in quotes and it doesn't need to be. I was definitely inspired by your deleted answer and I considered noting that. I'll do it now. However, yours was a quote with 0 invalid words. Mine is a sentence and, thus, must have invalid words. $\endgroup$
    – Engineer Toast
    Mar 3, 2015 at 20:14
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    $\begingroup$ @warspyking You're upset about a stolen answer? Interesting, then, that the most recent edit on your own answer makes it exactly the same as someone else's (cough), except for one word. $\endgroup$
    – KSmarts
    Mar 3, 2015 at 20:21
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    $\begingroup$ I read "eightieth" as in "eightieth in line" but you're right in that it can also be fractional. Here comes the update. I'm leaving off "eighties", though, as it refers to a range of numbers that are all over 10 even though the word itself is not a number. It's the same reason I'm leaving out "eightfold". After all, we don't want to get silly here... $\endgroup$
    – Engineer Toast
    Mar 3, 2015 at 22:00
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I've got 45-7=38

Eighty feisty, atheistic, albeit dreich, reigning sovereign sheikhs' heirs, deifing society, inveigled a weird foreign leisurely scientist's fanciest eight rottweilers to forfeit sufficient obeisance, veiling a heinous seismic gneiss vein heist, wherein they abseiled heights of neighboring ancient lithofacies, heigh-ho-ing their weighty freight with beige greige skeins, later efficiently surfeiting on stupefacient codeine.

Face it, we can go on until we hit 1767 words...

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    $\begingroup$ Change every "eight" to be "eighty eight" $\endgroup$
    – Engineer Toast
    Mar 3, 2015 at 19:49
  • $\begingroup$ @EngineerToast That should be spelled "eighty-eight," which is one word. $\endgroup$
    – KSmarts
    Mar 3, 2015 at 19:50
  • $\begingroup$ @EngineerToast or 8888888888888888888 in words. Obvious Rule Patched. $\endgroup$
    – March Ho
    Mar 3, 2015 at 19:50
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    $\begingroup$ This can really go for infinity if you do it right couldn't it? $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Mar 3, 2015 at 19:52
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    $\begingroup$ Why did you copy the answer though? It appears that it is clearly made in bad faith. $\endgroup$
    – March Ho
    Mar 3, 2015 at 20:36

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