What words have “‑ei‑” (except in “‑cei‑”) pronounced [i:]?

Question

The rule is that written ei is pronounced [i:] only after the letter c — or that what is pronounced [i:] is written ei after the letter c only.

Here are exceptions I’ve found so far:

foreign (possibly)
seizure
either (possibly)
neither (possibly)
weird
being
seizure

Can you add more exceptions to this list?

Update:

I am not so much interested in differences of pronunciation between dialects of English as I am in helpful (for me) mnemonics for written English.

Update 2:

Once more, this question is not on orthography but on mnemonics to help in writing.

If you know other helpful mnemonics to deal with spelling words with ‑ie‑ and  ‑ei‑, you are welcome to answer this question.

John Y · Accepted Answer

As user4729 mentioned, caffeine and codeine.  Another common word in that vaguely chemical vein would be protein.

I would also add keister, leisure, and obeisance.

Words that are less clear to me (because the overabundance of vowels makes it ambiguous to me whether the "-ei-" should be treated as a unit), are onomatopoeia and plebeian.  (I am leaning toward these being not good examples; but surely they are better than being, which is on the asker's list as I write this.)

Stein G. Strindhaug · Answer

The rules of English orthography:

The first rule of English orthography is, you do not talk about rules in English orthography.
The second rule of English orthography is, you DO NOT talk about rules English orthography.
Two letters can be used for one sound.
Sometimes three (or more).
No real phonetics, no logic.
Words will go on as long as they have to.
If this is your first encounter with English orthography, you have to fight.

(Loosely based on the rules of Fight Club)

user4729 · Answer

"Caffeine," "codeine," and many similar chemical names are exceptions also.

If you want a list of these, go to a crossword puzzle site like oneacross.com, and put in "???eine" for the pattern, with no clue, and you will get a list of words with the number of letters specified.

Laura Brown · Answer

This is a very old post, but it distracted me from actually meeting my deadline.
For spelling lists with a relatively limited number of words that contain the spelling/sound combination, creating a silly sentence or two that contains them is the easiest for me.
"The seizure of the caffeine and codeine was neither weird nor leisurely. Either sitting on your keister or paying obeisance will tell anyone that!"
I left out foreign, because I have never heard it pronounced with a long ee sound, whereas I have heard either/neither pronounced with both long ee and i-e sounds.

What words have “‑ei‑” (except in “‑cei‑”) pronounced [i:]?

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