Close to 200000 words that dont follow the rule? Woah.
Half of those are obvious. If you pluralize a y, its going to be ies. Unless its a proper noun.
Nah, I think that’s supposed to be words in the language; it’s 2169 exceptions.
Almost half of those words are merely the same words with “s” added to the end.
English is full of exceptions to all of its rules. That’s partly why it’s a hard language for many to learn. This is perhaps just the most visible of them. 
EDIT: OK, I didn’t read the site before I posted :P. Yeah, the problem is, most peope think that I before E except after C IS the full rhyme, they forget the rest of it.
“I” before “E”, except after “C”
Or when sounded like “A”
As in neighbour and weigh
If short “E” or long “I” is the sound that is right
Write “E” before “I” as in their or in height
It’s a neat rhyme, but: “short E” and “their”? American children will be confused.
Whoa, that’s the whole rhyme? Interesting.
What’s the implication? “Thar”? 
“If short ‘E’ … as in their” would have to become “If long ‘A’ … as in their”, which looks kind of silly in the context.
Well the difference between short “E” and long “A” is subtle anyway. I guess people could figure it out regardless
As subtle as “get” versus “gate”? They’re really distinct here in the Midwestern U.S. Not so much in England, and maybe Northeastern Canada.
Most of their exceptions for C then IE come from words ending in “Y” then suffixes ("-ies, -ier, -iest"), or words in which the I and the E are from seperate syllables.
Excpetions for no C but EI include mainly: silent “E” followed by suffixes beginning with “I” (-ing, -ist, -ism), situations were the combination sounds like “eye”, double "E"s followed by a suffix beginning with “I”, and a number of the words that have a prefix that ends with “E” attached to a word beginning with “I”.
Furthermore, it is not a rule, it is a mneumonic (sp?). Words with the “EI” or “IE” in seperate syllables do not require use of the mneumonic to remember the order, so they should be ignored. If this were done, the list would likely be at least halved.
Edit: Where’s the dude’s contact information so we can enlighten him?
Yeah, I’ve always thought that rule was stupid because it applies to very few words.
Protein.
You see? Even the exceptions to the exceptions have exceptions!
That’s because if protein were spelt protien, it would be pronounced “pro-shen”
I wish I could do the whole “Butterfly Effect” and go back to elementary school when my teacher said that, then bring up this list of words and be all like, “FUCK you teacher, this is stupid to teach children!” and then punch her in the eye.