We all know the rule: “I before E, except after C and when sounding like ‘ay’ as in neighbor and weigh and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May; and you’ll always be wrong no matter WHAT you say!”
But there is an extended rule where the I can go before E after C like in ‘fanciest’ and ‘efficient’ and, the word we all love, ‘science’.
From what I understand, this has to do with origins of words, and with different root languages they bring different rules.
But I’m not a linguist – the rule that I go by is that English is hella broken, and if you want to have any semblance of an appearance of competence you have to learn each individual word one by one and learn how it’s spelled and how it sounds because NONE OF THEM follow any RULES.
English needs to be fixed.
The Perfect Scientist 