ENGLISH SPELLING RULES



ENGLISH SPELLING RULES

Short and Long Vowels

1. To spell a short vowel sound, only one letter is needed:

 

                 at           red            it            hot           up

2. To spell a long sound you must add a second vowel. The second may be next to the first, in the VVC pattern (boat, maid, cue, etc.) or it may be separated from the first one by a consonant in the VCV pattern (made, ride, tide, etc.). If the second vowel is separated from the first by two spaces, it does not affect the first one. This is the VCCV pattern in which the first vowel remains short. Thus, doubling a consonant can be called "protecting" a short vowel because it prevents an incoming vowel from getting close enough to the first one to change its sound from short to long: 

          maid,  made,  but  madder;            dine,  diner,  but dinner.

Spelling the Sound /k/

This sound can be spelled in any one of four ways:

1. c     2. cc     3. k        4. ck

1. The single letter, c , is the most common spelling. It may be used anywhere in a word:

|cat |corn |actor |victim |direct |mica |

|scat  |bacon  |public  |cactus  |inflict  |pecan |

2. Sometimes the letter c must be doubled to cc to protect the sound of a short vowel:

|stucco  |baccalaureate  |hiccups |

|Mecca  |tobacco  |buccaneer |

|occupy |raccoon  |succulent  |

3. The letter k is substituted for c if /k/ is followed by an e, i, or y.

|kin  |make  |sketch  |poker  |kind  |risky |

|skin  |token  |skill  |keep  |liking  |flaky |

(Boring examples? How about kyphosis, kylix, keratosis, and dyskinesia?)

4. Similarly, the spelling ck, is substituted for cc if the following letter is an e, i, or y:

|lucky  |picking  |rocking  |finicky |

|blackest  |mackintosh  |frolicked  |ducking |

|Kentucky  |picnicking  |stocking  |Quebecker |

5. The letters, k and ck are more than substitutes for c and cc. They are used to spell /k/ at the end of a monosyllable. The digraph, ck, ALWAYS follows a short vowel:

|sack  |duck  |lick  |stick  |wreck  |clock |

(Forget about yak. Your student will never need it.)

The letter, k, follows any other sound:

|milk  |soak  |make  |bark |

|tank  |peek  |bike  |cork |

|tusk  |hawk  |duke  |perk |

The Sound, /j/

The sound, /j/ is spelled in three ways: j ge and dge.

1. The letter j is usually used if the sound if followed by an a, o, or u.

|just  |jam  |jungle  |injure  |major  |adjacent  |

|jog  |jar  |Japan  |jury  |job  |Benjamin |

|adjust  |jacket  |jolly  |jaguar  |jump  |jalousie |

2. Since the letter g has the soft sound of /j/ when it is followed by an e, i, or y, it is usually used in this situation:

|gentle  |ginger  |aging  |algebra |

|Egyptologist  |gem  |origin  |gym |

2. If /j/ follows a short vowel sound, it is usually spelled with dge. This is because the letter j, is never doubled in English.

|badge  |ridge  |dodge  |partridge  |gadget |

|judge  |edge  |smudge  |judgement  |budget |

The Sound, /ch/

The sound /ch/ has two spellings: tch after a short vowel, ch anywhere else:

|witch  |sketch  |botch  |satchel |

|catch  |hatchet  |kitchen  |escutcheon |

Exceptions:

Which, rich, much, such, touch, bachelor, attach, sandwich, and ostrich.

The Sound, /kw/

This sound is ALWAYS spelled with the letters, qu, never anything else.

Using -le

Words ending in -le, such as little, require care. If the vowel sound is short, there must be two consonants between the vowel and the -le. Otherwise, one consonant is enough.

|li tt le |ha nd le |ti ck le |a mp le |

|bo tt le |pu zz le |cru mb le |a ng le |

|bugle |able |poodle |dawdle  |

|receive  |love  |connive  |brave  |

Adding Endings

There are two kinds of suffixes, those that begin with a vowel and those that begin with a consonant. As usual, the spelling problems occur with the vowels:

 

|Vowel Suffixes |  |Consonant Suffixes |

|- - - age | - - -ist | | - - - ness |- - - cess |

|- - - ant  |- - - ish | | - - -less |- - -ment |

|- - -ance | - - -ing | | - - -ly | - - -ty |

|- - - al |- - -ar | | - - -ful | - - -ry |

| - - -ism | - - -o | | - - -hood | - - -ward |

|- - -able  |- - -on | | - - -wise |  |

|- - -an |- - -ous | |  |  |

|- - - a | - - -or | |  |  |

|- - -es | - - -ual | |  |  |

|- - -ed | - - -unt | |  |  |

|- - -er |- - -um | |  |  |

|- - -est |  - - -us | |  |  |

|- - -y | - - -ive | |  |  |

1. Words that end in the letter y must have the y changed to i before adding any suffix:

|body - bodily  |marry - marriage  |

|many - manifold  |family -  familiar  |

|happy - happiness |puppy - puppies |

|beauty - beautiful  |vary - various   |

|company - companion |fury - furious  |

|plenty - plentiful  |merry - merriment |

2. In words that end in a silent e you must drop it before you add a vowel suffix. The silent e is no longer needed to make the preceding vowel long as the incoming vowel will do the trick:

|ride - riding  |cure - curable  |use - usual  |age - aging  |

|fame - famous  |force - forcing  |refuse -  refusal  |slice - slicing |

|pure - purity  |ice - icicle |nose - nosy  |convince - convincing |

|globe - global  |race - racist  |pole - polar  |offense - offensive |

 3. Words that end in an accented short or modified vowel sound must have the final consonant doubled to protect that sound when you add a vowel suffix:

|Quebec - Quebecker |remit - remittance  |confer - conferring  |refer - referred  |

|upset - upsetting  |shellac - shellacking |occur - occurred  |concur- concurrent |

Note that this doubling is not done if the accent is not on the last syllable. If the word ends in a schwa, there is no need to "protect" it.

|open - opening  |organ - organize  |

|focus - focused |refer - referee  |

4. Normally you drop a silent e before adding a vowel suffix. However, if the word ends in -ce or -ge and the incoming vowel is an a, o, or u, you cannot cavalierly toss out that silent e. It is not useless: it is keeping its left-hand letter soft, and your a, o, or u will not do that. Thus:

|manage - manageable  |peace - peaceable  |

|courage - courageous  |revenge - vengeance |

|surge - surgeon  |change - changeable  |

|notice - noticeable  |outrage - outrageous |

Gorgeous George bludgeoned a pigeon noticeably! Tsk.

5. Adding consonant suffixes is easy. You just add them. (Of course you must change a final y to i before you add any suffix.)

|peace - peaceful   |harm - harmless   |age - ageless |

|pity - pitiful  |child - childhood |rifle - riflery |

/sh/

When this sound occurs before a vowel suffix, it is spelled ti, si, or ci.

|partial  |cautious  |patient  |vacation |

|special  |deficient  |suspicion  |suction |

|inertia  |delicious  |ratio  |pension |

|musician  |physician  |optician  |quotient |

|electrician  |nutrition  |statistician  |expulsion |

/ee/ before a vowel suffix

When /ee/ precedes a vowel suffix, it is usually spelled with the letter i:

|Indian  |obvious  |medium |

|ingredient  |zodiac  |material |

Spelling Determined by Word Meaning

1. Mist and missed sound alike, as do band and banned. To determine the spelling, remember that -ed is a past-tense tending.

a. The mist drifted into the harbor.

b. I nearly missed my bus.

c. The movie was banned in Boston.

d. The band played on.

2. The endings of dentist and finest sound alike. Deciding which one to use can be tricky. One rule helps but doesn't cover all cases:

a. --ist is a suffix meaning someone who does something:

   artist    -   machinist    -   druggist

b. --est is the ending used on superlative adjectives:

   finest    -   sweetest    -   longest

3. The sounds at the end of musician and condition sound alike. but....

a. cian always means a person, where...

b. tion or sion are never used for people.

4. How do you tell whether to use tion or sion?

a. If the root word ends in /t/, use -tion: complete, completion

b. If the root word ends in /s/ or /d/, use sion: extend, extension

suppress, suppression

c. If the sound of the last syllable is the "heavy" sound of /zhun/ rather than the light sound, /shun/, use s: confusion, vision, adhesion

Exception: The ending, --mit becomes -mission:

|permit - permission  |omit - omission |

|submit - submission  |commit - commission |

The Hiss

1. The letter s between vowels sounds like a z:

|nose  |result  |noise |

|present  |partisan  |tease |

|preside  |resound  |reserve |

2. The light "hissy" sound is spelled with either ss or ce. Predictably, ss, like any proper doubled consonant, follows accented short vowels. Soft c is used anywhere else. (A soft c is one that is followed by e, i, or y).

|notice  |reticent  |massive |bicycle  |

|recent  |gossip |russet  |rejoice  |

|essence |vessel  |discuss  |pass |

3. The plural ending is always spelled with a single letter s unless you can hear a new syllable on the plural word. In that case, use -es:

|loss, losses |bank, banks | twitch, twitches |tree, trees |

|box, boxes |list, lists  |judge, judges |  |

No compendium of spelling rules would be complete with the most important rule of all:

WHEN IN DOUBT, ASK (or look it up)

Rule #1: “I before E except after C”;

This rule, designed to help us remember how to spell words such as receive and chief, seems so promising in its simplicity at first.

• achieve, believe, bier, brief, hygiene, grief, thief, friend, grieve, chief, fiend, patience, pierce, priest

• ceiling, conceive, deceive, perceive, receipt, receive, deceit, conceit

But then things get complicated: it doesn't work with words pronounced "ay" as in neighbor, freight, beige, sleigh, weight, vein, and weigh and there are many exceptions to the rule: either, neither, feint, foreign, forfeit, height, leisure, weird, seize, and seizure.

Still, the rule is relatively simple and worth remembering.

Rule #2: “Dropping Final E”

When adding an ending to a word that ends with a silent e, drop the final e if the ending begins with a vowel:

• advancing

• surprising

However, if the ending begins with a consonant, keep the final e:

• advancement

• likeness

(However, if the silent e is preceded by another vowel, drop the e when adding any ending: argument, argued, truly.)

Exceptions: to avoid confusion and mispronunciation, the final e is kept in words such as mileage and words where the final e is preceded by a soft g or c: changeable, courageous, manageable, management, noticeable. (The word management, for example, without that e after the g, would be pronounced with a hard g sound.)

Rule #3: “Dropping Final Y”

When adding an ending to a word that ends with y, change the y to i when it is preceded by a consonant.

• supply becomes supplies

• worry becomes worried

• merry becomes merrier

This does not apply to the ending -ing, however.

• crying

• studying

Nor does it apply when the final y is preceded by a vowel.

• obeyed

• saying

Rule #4: “Doubling Final Consonants”

When adding an ending to a word that ends in a consonant, we double that consonant in many situations. First, we have to determine the number of syllables in the word.

Double the final consonant before adding an ending that begins with a vowel when the last syllable of the word is accented and that syllable ends in a single vowel followed by a single consonant.

• submit is accented on the last syllable and the final consonant is preceded by a vowel, so we double the t before adding, for instance, an -ing or -ed: submitting, submitted.

• flap contains only one syllable which means that it is always accented. Again, the last consonant is preceded by a vowel, so we double it before adding, for instance, an -ing or -ed: flapping, flapped. This rule does not apply to verbs that end with "x," "w," "v," and "y," consonants that cannot be doubled (such as "box" [boxing] and "snow" [snowing]).

• open contains two syllables and the last syllable is preceded by a single vowel, but the accent falls on the first syllable, not the last syllable, so we don't double the n before adding an ending: opening, opened.

• refer contains two syllables and the accent falls on the last syllable and a single vowel precedes the final consonant, so we will double the r before adding an ending, as in referring, referral. The same would apply to begin, as in beginner, beginning.

• relent contains two syllables, but the final consonant is preceded by another consonant, not a vowel, so we do not double the t before adding an ending: relented, relenting.

• deal looks like flap (above), but the syllable ends in a consonant preceded not by a single vowel, but by two vowels, so we do not double the final l as in dealer and dealing. The same would apply, then, to despair: despairing, despaired.

Rule #5: “Adding Prefixes”

Generally, adding a prefix to a word does not change its spelling. For some reason, the word misspelling is one of the most often misspelled words in English. See the material on adding prefixes in the section on Vocabulary. See, also, the section on the creation and spelling of Compound Nouns and Modifiers.

• unnecessary, dissatisfied, disinterested, misinform

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