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© Copyright 1999, Jim Loy
I suppose you have heard the English spelling rule, "I before E, except after C". It covers most of the bases: "thief," "grief," "believe," "relieve," etc., or (after "c") "receive," "ceiling," "conceit," etc. This rule, essentially applies to "ie" or "ei" which have an "ee" (long e) sound. Others (ay or other sounds) are usually spelled "ei." Here are some words with these other sounds:
Then there are quite a few exceptions ("ee" sound, but spelled "ei"):
Or not an "ee" sound, but spelled "ie":
Of course "either" and "neither" are pronounced differently (and are not exceptions to the rule) outside the USA.
A few words have a syllable break between the two vowels ("deity," "science"), and their spellings are fairly obvious. Most foreign words retain their foreign spelling: "concierge," "Heimlich," "leitmotif." And words with prefixes and suffixes ("being," "deice" (usually spelled "de-ice") "reinvent") should be obvious.
Addendum:
According to The Complete Word Book by Mary A. DeVries, this is the entire "i before e" spelling rule:
Use i before e except after c or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh; and except seize and seizure and also leisure, weird, height, and either, forfeit, and neither.
As you can see, this covers most of the cases.