English spelling rules

As is well-known, English spelling is very irregular. However, there are rules and generalisations that can help us avoid making unnecessary mistakes. We should all be aware of the spelling rules below, all of which (with a few additional comments) have been compiled from www.askoxford.com.

The normal way to form an adverb is to add -ly, as in stupidly, publicly, or humorously. However, there are exceptions (and there are many adverbs that do not end in -ly at all, such as here and now):

• If the word ends in -ll, add -y (e.g. fully).

• For words of more than one syllable that end in -y, remove the -y and add -ily (e.g. happily).

• Most single-syllable words ending in -y are regular, except for daily and gaily.

The usual way to form comparatives and superlatives of adjectives is to add -er and -est: great, greater, greatest. There are four groups of exceptions (in addition to the major exception that we use more and most to compare all adjectives with three syllables or more, for instance important and annoying, as well as most adjectives with two syllables, for instance striking and awful):

• For words ending in a consonant followed by a -y, change the -y to an -i before adding the ending (e.g. happier, happiest).

• For one-syllable words containing a long vowel sound and ending in -e, e.g. late, remove the -e before adding the ending: later, latest.

• For one-syllable words containing a short vowel sound and ending in a single consonant (e.g. sad), double the final consonant before adding the ending: sadder, saddest.

• Words ending in -l normally just add the ending, but there is one exception, cruel. The comparative and superlative are crueller and cruellest.

Words that are formed from existing words can also be confusing - sometimes the original spelling stays the same and sometimes it changes. Some to remember are:

• Words ending in -our, e.g. honour, favour, labour, humour. Keep the u when you add -able or -er - e.g. honourable, favourable, labourer; favourite also keeps the u. But u is very often lost - e.g. before -ous, as in humorous, glamorous, rigorous; also in honorary and honorific.

• Occur and occurrence but refer and reference. In verbs ending in -ur and -ur, double the r when you add -ence; leave it single if the verb ends in -er or -ear (appear and apparent).

• Drop the o if you add -iation to a verb ending in -ounce. The most common example is pronunciation from pronounce.

One of the most common types of spelling error is a mistake over whether a word is spelled with a double or a single consonant. There are several possibilities:

• A word should have a double consonant, but is written with only one. Words which may be misspelled in this way include appoint (and related words like appointment and disappointment); address; occur; suppress.

• A consonant is mistakenly doubled. This is especially likely when a single consonant follows a short vowel, as in canister; banister; pavilion. Other words likely to be misspelled in this way include anoint; apartment; biased; omit.

• A word has two sets of double consonants, one or both of which is left as a single letter. Examples include accommodate; aggressive; committee; embarrass; millennium.

• One consonant in a word should be doubled and another left single - but which is which? Likely candidates for this type of misspelling might be appal; accumulate; parallel. A short vowel before the consonant that should be single makes life more difficult in words such as commemorate; desiccate; disappear; necessary; recommend; reconnoitre; titillate. The Caribbean and the Mediterranean can both cause problems.

Some mistakes are caused by trying too hard - you may remember a difficult point about one word and wrongly think that it applies to another that looks or sounds similar. For instance, though accommodate has a double m following a double c, in accumulate the m is single; harass has only a single r even though the r in embarrass is double. In general, many mistakes in the use of double and single consonants arise from comparison with words that sound or look similar, or with related words. For example, many people spell inoculate with a double n, influenced by words such as innocent and innocuous; while the number of words beginning with irr- (irregular, irritable etc.) makes the single r in iridescent harder to remember. Even trickier are words like fulfil and skilful, set beside full, skill, and fill.

The usual way to form a plural is to add an -s, e.g. dogs, popes. If the word ends in -ch, --s, -sh, -x, -z, then add -es, e.g. branches, masses, bushes, boxes, chintzes. Most words that end in -f or -fe change the ending to -ves (e.g. wives, calves), although there are exceptions (e.g. beliefs, chiefs, dwarfs, gulfs, proofs, roofs). For words that end in a vowel + y, add -s, e.g. days, boys. If a word ends in a consonant + y, change the -y to -ies, e.g. babies, spies. Words that end in -o normally just add -s, but there is a group of words that add -oes: these include buffaloes, dominoes, echoes, goes, grottoes, haloes, heroes, mangoes, mosquitoes, potatoes, tomatoes, tornadoes, torpedoes, vetoes, and volcanoes.

Words are often misspelled when they contain a letter that is not pronounced - the silent p in psychology and related words is an obvious example. It's easy to leave out these silent letters. Some letters are particularly likely to give trouble:

• C. Many words are spelled with a silent c following s: for example abscess, descend (with descent); omniscient; words ending in -esce, -escent, or -escence, such as acquiesce, effervescent, convalescent. A silent c may also occur before k or q: examples include acknowledge; acquainted; acquire.

• D. Silent d is easy to omit before j, as in adjourn; adjunct; adjudicate; adjust.

• G. G should precede n in words like align; foreign; reign. G is also sometimes followed by a silent u, as in guarantee; guard; beleaguered.

• H. Silent h is particularly common after r - as in diarrhoea (made harder by the double r and the diphthong oe); haemorrhage (a double r adds to the difficulty again); rhythm.C is another letter likely to be followed by h- in saccharine, for example - and remember the h in silhouette.

While thinking about silent letters, remember the t in mortgage and the b in debt and subtle. Watch out as well for the i in parliament. Some words may have whole syllables that are not pronounced and may be left out in writing. Contemporary is is often pronounced and spelled contempory; itinerary is similar. Sometimes the omission of a letter or syllable comes from a mistaken pronunciation. Many people fail to pronounce the c in Arctic and Antarctic, and so leave it out when writing the words. The first r in February is often left out in both speech and writing, as is the first r in secretary. Quantitative may be shortened in speech to the more manageable quantitive, and spelled accordingly.

Sometimes a word sounds as though it contains another familiar wo

• There is no cocoa in a coconut.
• Bated breath has nothing to do with bait.

• Corridor is not related to door.
• Sacrilege has the i first and the e second, unlike religion.
• Abseiling is quite different from sailing.

Sometimes it is just part of another word that causes a mistake:

• Privilege has no d, unlike, e.g., knowledge.

• Attach and detach end in -ach, not -atch, unlike dispatch.

• A protuberance is something that protrudes; but it has no r after the t.

• Dissect has a double s, though bisect has only one.

• Psychedelic has an e after psych, unlike psychology.

Many words are easy to misspell because of the way in which their stress pattern affects their pronunciation. When they occur in unstressed syllables, the different vowel sounds merge into a sound like "uh" or "er". You may then find it difficult to remember which vowel is correct in a particular word.

• People often confuse unstressed e and a in words like category, desperate, separate, grammar. It is easy to muddle pairs such as allude and elude, affect and effect, which have very similar pronunciations.

• You may want to write unstressed e as er, especially in words like integrate, which it is easy to confuse with words beginning with inter-.

• It's easy to confuse o with both a and e in unstressed syllables. Words which you may find difficult include corroborate (not -erate) and propaganda (not propo-).

• In unstressed syllables, e sometimes has a short i sound. You may find it hard to remember which words spell this sound with an e (e.g. artefact, benefit, indigenous, liquefy) and which spell it with an i (e.g. dilapidated, purify). It is easy to confuse elicit with illicit.

Word endings are easy to misspell. They are often unstressed, so the pronunciation does not give much help with the spelling. There are several pairs of suffixes that differ only in the vowel they use:

• -ant and -ent. Words using a include arrogant, assistant, blatant, brilliant, defiant, flippant, malignant, and vacant. Examples of words using e are absorbent, complacent, innocent, reminiscent, independent, and transparent. Confident and dependent, with an e, are adjectives; confidant and dependant are nouns. (But dissident and adolescent are spelled with an e whether they are being used as nouns or as adjectives.)

• -ance and -ancy, -ence and -ency. A noun ending in one of these suffixes usually has a corresponding adjective ending in -ant or -ent, for example dominance (dominant), expectancy (expectant), absence (absent), decency (decent). Where there is a pair like confident and confidant, use -ence to correspond to the adjective rather than the noun. Some verbs have a noun ending in -nce or -ncy corresponding to them but no adjective ending in -nt. In these cases it is almost always right to use a, e.g. annoyance (annoy); but watch out for conference, existence, and interference.

• -ary and -ery. It is very easy to confuse these two - or to spell them just as -ry. -ery is by far the less common, and is almost always used to form nouns - e.g. confectionery, jewellery. You may find this useful to remember if you tend to confuse stationery with stationary - it is the one ending in -ery that is the noun ('paper, writing materials') and the one ending in -ary that is the adjective meaning ' not moving'. -Ary can be used to form adjectives - such as complimentary - or nouns - such as secretary.

• -able and -ible. These two endings are very often confused. The commoner ending is -able: words that finish with this include acceptable, admirable, available, comparable, indispensable, and inseparable. All new words now created with this ending are spelled -able.
  -ible is the correct suffix in words such as accessible, compatible, gullible, incredible, and irresistible. Pairs of words with similar meaning but different suffixes include comprehensible and understandable, irritable and irascible.
  One helpful thing to remember is that -ible is not used after vowels: there can be no doubt about which ending to use in words such as agreeable, invariable, permeable, and replaceable.
  Another quick check is that if you remove -able from a word, you are usually still left with a complete word, whereas if you do the same with -ible you are not. But this is definitely a tricky area - best to look up the word in your Oxford dictionary!

• -ative and -itive. The short a in the ending of words like imaginative sounds very like the short idefinitive or sensitive, so it is easy to end up with spelling mistakes such as authorititive for authoritative. In fact -ative is much more common. It is used in words such as affirmative, alternative, demonstrative, illustrative, qualitative, and vegetative. Common words ending in -itive include acquisitive, competitive, fugitive, inquisitive, intuitive, and repetitive.

• -ise and -ize. Most words ending in -ise can also be spelled with a final -ize: for example antagonise, capitalise, centralise. For some words, however, you can only use the ending -ise. Some of the most common of these are advertise, advise, enterprise, exercise, improvise, revise, supervise, surprise, and televise.

Some words that are already hard to spell can give further trouble when endings are added, e.g. to put a verb into the past tense. Enthral, for example, sounds as though it should be spelled with a double l but in fact has only one; but the lis doubled in enthralled and enthralling. The i in profited and profiting is short, which makes it sound as though there should be a double t; but in fact there is only one, as in the present tense profit. These examples may be confusing; but a few basic rules will help: When you form the past tense of a verb, or add -ing, remember:

• Verbs ending in a double consonant keep it (add, added, adding, embarrass, embarrassed, embarrassing).

• Double the final consonant if the verb has only one syllable and the vowel is short - e.g. clap, clapped, clapping.

• Double the final consonant if the verb has two syllables and the second is stressed - e.g. occur, occurred, occurring, acquit, acquitted, acquitting, prefer, preferred, preferring . This rule explains the confusing enthral and enthralled, fulfil and fulfilled.

• Leave the final consonant single if the verb has two syllables and the first is stressed - e.g. credit, credited, crediting, budget, budgeted, budgeting. This rule explains profit. It has some important exceptions: focused and biased are usually spelled with a single s in British English, and a final l is always doubled.

• Leave the final consonant single if the verb has more than two syllables and the final syllable is not stressed - e.g. benefit, benefited, benefiting, develop, developed, developing.

• If a verb ends in e, just add d to form the past tense. Most verbs drop the e before -ing (timing, using). Ageing usually keeps the e; and singeing must keep it to distinguish it from singing.