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• in eye (if we consider "ey" a spelling variant of "ei")
• before "gh" in some words: height, sleight
• in words with Greek roots, which I don't believe were ever frequent enough to have had a significant influence on the pronunciation of the common word either
• in words that were recently taken from German, as mentioned earlier

• in eye (if we consider "ey" a spelling variant of "ei")
• before "gh" in some words: height, sleight
• in words with Greek roots, which I don't believe were ever frequent enough to have had a significant influence on the pronunciation of the common word either
• in words that were recently taken from German, as mentioned earlier

What's interesting is that some of these spellings seem to suggest that the modern pronunciation "should" be "AY-ther" (IPA /ˈeɪðər/), but nobody actually says it like that.

There are a few other English words where "ei" represents /aɪ/. It occurs:

What's interesting is that some of these spellings seem to suggest that the modern pronunciation "should" be "AY-ther" (IPA /ˈeɪðər/), but this pronunciation seems to be recorded only as a dialectal variant. It's not considered standard.

On the other hand, there are a few other English words where "ei" represents /aɪ/. It occurs:

flIt's a rather difficult question. Both pronunciations are correct today—I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a dictionary that would disagree with that. So, the individual you encountered was wrong about "ī-thər" (I assume you mean the pronunciation that's like "EYE-ther") being wrong. But this question is about the history, and the word has been spelled (and presumably pronounced) in a variety of ways across the years. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists the following forms ("OE" stands for "Old English," and "ME" stands for "Middle English"):

It's a rather difficult question. Both pronunciations are correct today—I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a dictionary that would disagree with that. So, the individual you encountered was wrong about "ī-thər" (I assume you mean the pronunciation that's like "EYE-ther") being wrong. But this question is about the history, and the word has been spelled (and presumably pronounced) in a variety of ways across the years. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists the following forms ("OE" stands for "Old English," and "ME" stands for "Middle English"):