Why is Atheist spelled with the E before I, if,"I before E except after C?

Question

As a Christian, I would like to take this opportunity, for spelling it wrong all these times.
Wow, I sincerally apologize to all you Atheist's.
Like Wow, totally.
I am sorry.
:(

Humor about language
The Funny English Language
No wonder the English language is so very difficult to learn.
I sometimes wonder how we manage to communicate at all!
We'll begin with a box and the plural is boxes.
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
The one fowl is a goose but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may found a lone mouse or a whole set of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why should not the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural wouldn't be hose.
And the plural of cat is cats and not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say Mother, we never say

Answer 1

Because it involves two syllables.

Duh

Answer 2

confident. purely as there is not any grammatical rule to capitalize god. via the way, there are a number of atheists that have not got English as their interior reach language. i'm Dutch, in my language 'atheist' makes appropriate experience, in accordance to any rule of spelling. different than we pronounce it as atheist, no longer as atheist. No, no, interior the Dutch way. Atheist. Nope, you neglected it lower back, you mentioned atheist. that's atheist! Gosh. With an prolonged "A" and an "e" as in adult men. Oh nicely.

Answer 3

Weird is another word that is spelled against the weird "I before E except after C" rule.

You probably don't have to worry about any "Atheists" being upset with you for misspelling it, because they don't really have any organizations that they congregate at. So they don't go around looking for reasons to be offended. Most could care less if you don't agree with then about other things either, unlike Christains who are easily offended if you don't agree with everything they say. (did I forget that "A before I usually" rule?)

Regards,

Chris (the important part)

Answer 4

Hey, at least you know when to admit when you're wrong. Admirable. Does it ever bother you when people spell Christian 'Xtian'? (Which I admit I do sometimes b/c it's shorter)

Oh, and 'theist' comes from the Greek 'theos' (God)... at least I think that's how it's spelled and I am too lazy to get up and check my Greek textbook. The "ei" in theist/ atheist isn't a diphthong; it's two separate syllables, so the rule doesn't apply.

Answer 5

The dictionary says it is a Middle French word from the Greek "atheos" meaning godless. I think that rule was just a generalization, with the after"c" more true.

Answer 6

Because atheist is from the word 'theist', or someone who believes. So they spelled it oddly first, and we felt the need to add the 'a' just to get back to the ground state - non-belief. Funny how you have to define rational thoughts in terms of irrational ones.

Answer 7

Because Atheist is a three syllable word (A - THEE - IST) and the "i before e" only applies to when those letters form a single vowel sound.

Answer 8

Do not try to apply this rule across syllables. Just a friendly remininder.

Answer 9

the word has three parts (a - the - ist) with different meanings that were put together to make the combined meaning.

what about "protein"?

Answer 10

That rules terrible it doesnt work with most things like height and weight

Answer 11

Weird.