"Their" Doesn't Follow Rule? How Reconcile This?

My english teacher said
"i before e, except after c." except in a few special cases which I will now tell you about.

I cant remember what the special cases were.

In June 2009, the British government advised primary school teachers to stop teaching the rule.

I before e, except after c, unless it's weird.

Yeah, weird is one, but there are actually many others...

reign, deign, feign, either/neither, weigh, sleigh, sleight, height, sheila, theist, inveigle, abseil, freight, apartheid, seizure, beige, vein, feisty, heir...

just to name a few.

...a few more

codeine, conscience, deify, deity, deign, dreidel, eider, eight, either, feint, foreign, forfeit, freight, gleization, gneiss, greige, greisen, heifer, heigh-ho, height, heinous, heist, leitmotiv, neigh, neighbor, neither, peignoir, prescient, rein, science, seiche, seidel, seine, seismic, sheik, society, sovereign, surfeit, teiid, veil, vein, weir






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The rule is nonsense, Tom, so there's no need to reconcile anything.

I before E, except after C
Or when it sounds like A
As in "neighbor" or "weigh"

That covers most of the exceptions. Except for words like "their" and "weird."

and heist and inveigle and ...

Merriam-Webster Online has a nice little treatment of the rule:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/video/0003-ibeforee.htm

That video didn't play for me.

You may need to update Flash Player

Ah, I don't really care enough. And I'm using a Mac and I don't use Flash Player.

i before e does NOT occur in words that sound like "A"
i before e does NOT occur in words where "c" sounds like "sh"
i before e does NOT occur in words with a long "ee" sound
i before e does NOT occur in most chemical names
i before e does NOT occur in most proper names
i before e does NOT occur in most prefixes starting in "de" or "re"
i before e does NOT occur in words in the present tense that end in "ing" and end in an e like ageing
(I think their is pronounced with a long ay Thay-er (So it fall into the first one.)