Spelling
The only impeccable writers
are those who never wrote.
~ William Hazlitt
It is not easy to become a good speller. In fact, many people never
master the art. English is full of confusing rules, strange spellings like
pneumonia and aerial, and words that sound alike but have different
spellings (and you want to write the right word). No wonder George Bernard
Shaw, a strong advocate for spelling reform, could demonstrate the
irrationality of English by spelling fish ‘ghoti.’ As Shaw noted, the / f / sound
of gh in rough, the / I / sound of o in women, and the /S/ sound of ti in diction
will together make a fish – or, he might have said, a very fishy word.
In spite of all these difficulties, careful writers learn to spell their words
correctly. In this section you will find spelling rules to help, some rules of
word formation and lots of exercises, because, like in any other skill, spelling
can be improved with practice.
There is no magic formula for learning how to spell.
Spelling Tips
The ability to spell correctly results from persistent
study. Here are some useful suggestions for studying spelling:
Consult a good dictionary whenever you aren’t sure how to spell a word.
Use a small notebook exclusively for recording your personal spelling
problem words. Each time that you discover a problem word, enter it in
your notebook.
Try to apply a rule that will help you to understand why the word is spelt
as it is.
Use a computer spell checker, but remember that it cannot always come
to your rescue.
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Rules to Remember
Keep the final -e before an ending that starts with a
Final silent -e
consonant, e.g.:
settle + ment = settlement care + ful = careful
Drop a final -e before an ending that starts with a vowel, e.g.:
hide + ing = hiding nice + est = nicest.
EXCEPTIONS: the verb dye and words ending in -ce and -ge, for example:
dye – dyeing notice – noticeable change – changeable age – ageing
Practice 1. Complete each of the spaces in the passage by
derivatives of the words in the column on the right (pay attention to the
final ‘e’). The derivative should make sense in the context:
John got up, looked out of the window and 1) ___________ started IMMEDIATE
2) ___________ . After five days of pouring rain and wet clothes, he SMILE
saw to his 3) _____________ that the sun had come out. He had AMAZE
always known the weather in Scotland would be 4) ___________ , CHANGE
but he wasn‟t prepared for the pleasant surprise of 5) __________ SEE
the sun 6) ___________ down on him this particular morning. He SHINE
could 7) ________ believe his luck. BARE
For, according to the 8) ___________ he had come to with the AGREE
9) _________ of the hotel, this was the day when he would go MANAGE
sailing round the 10) __________ Isle of Skye, which all his friends LOVE
had told him was 11) __________ worth doing. DEFINITE
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One-syllable words ending in one vowel
Words ending in -y and -ie
and ‘y’ don’t change in the plural form (boy
– boys) and when adding -ful and -ness (joy – joyful, shy – shyness). All two-
syllable words change except ones with one vowel before -y, e.g.:
reply – replies – replied happy – happiness destroy – destroyed
These rules do not apply to adding -ing, e.g.: try – trying; annoy – annoying
The ending -ie changes to -y before -ing, e.g.: lie – lying; die – dying
Practice 2. Write the word ending in the suffix given:
a) supply (ing) f) cry (s)
b) destroy (ed) g) silly (ness)
c) apply (ed) h) annoy (ed)
d) lonely (ness) i) beauty (ful)
e) employ (s) j) pretty (ness)
The general rule is ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’,
Words with ie and ei
as long as the sound is / i: /, e.g.:
i before e believe, relieve, grief, achieve, niece
e is before i after c receive, conceit, deceit, perceive, receive
e is before i, as the combination weight, feign, vein, either, leisure, weird
is not pronounced / i : /
Practice 3. Complete the following words with ei or ie:
1) dec ____ ve 6) __ ght
2) n _____ ce 7) conc _____ ve
3) th ___ f 8) bel _____ f
4) gr _____ ve 9) n _____ ther
5) n ______ gh 10) sl _____ gh
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Doubling of consonants
1. Double the final consonant of a word when all the following are true:
a) the word is one syllable or is accented on the last syllable;
b) the word ends in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel;
c) the ending you are adding starts with a vowel. E.g.:
sob – sobbing prefer – preferred admit – admitting
EXCEPTIONS: final -w, -x, -y are never doubled.
2. In a two- or three-syllable word, if the accent changes from the final
syllable to a preceding one when a suffix is added, do not double the final
consonant, e.g.: refer – reference; confer – conference.
EXCEPTIONS: There are a few verbs where the final consonant is doubled
even though the stress is on the first syllable: worship, kidnap, handicap.
worship – worshipped kidnap – kidnapping handicap – handicapped
3. Final -l after one vowel is usually doubled in British English:
quarrel – quarrelling travel – travelling
Practice 4. Find the incorrectly spelt words:
1) referred 6) detered 11) refering
2) preferrence 7) funnier 12) traveling
3) stunning 8) occurence 13) forgetting
4) thiner 9) planed 14) begining
5) conferred 10) submiting 15) stoped
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Practice 5. Complete each of the spaces in the passage by
derivatives of the words in the column on the right (pay attention to
double consonants). The derivative should make sense in the context:
Suzy Stokes works for the 1) ___________ department of a large MARKET
company which makes 2) ___________ garments. It was Suzy who KNIT
introduced the idea of 3) ___________ dog hair to the company, SPIN
and she has been responsible for 4) _____________ the technology DEVELOP
needed to produce yarns for the material.
At the 5) ____________ , many people doubted that the idea would BEGIN
take off, and only Suzy‟s 6) ____________ approach prevented the COMMIT
whole project from being 7) __________. DROP
„It really hadn‟t 8) _____________ to people that there could be a OCCUR
market for the materials,‟ Suzy remembers, „and 9) ____________ TRANSFER
resources from other projects was not really 10) ______________.‟ PERMIT
But Suzy‟s determination paid off: at a recent sales 11) _________ , CONFER
dog-hair products were hailed as the company‟s largest growth area.
Words ending in -sede / -ceed / -cede
Only three words are spelt with a -ceed ending: succeed, exceed, proceed.
Only one word is spelt with a -sede ending: supersede.
All other words of this type are spelt with a -cede ending: precede, recede,
concede, etc.
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Practice 6. To complete each sentence, choose a word from the
list below. Look up the definition of any word you don’t know:
secede supersede precede succeed
recede exceed concede proceed
1) I know that you will not fail; you will __________.
2) It was a sad time in the US history when states threatened to _____ from the union.
3) The flooded town waited for the water to _________.
4) I expect to _________ the amount of business I said I would do.
5) _____________ with your work; I didn‟t mean to interrupt.
6) My new decision will _________, or replace the old one.
7) When they left the office, Ben _________ Manuel.
8) At the end of election day, we don‟t expect our candidate to have to _________.
Remember that rules of pluralizing vary depending on
Rules of
pluralizing what type of word forms the plural form.
1. pluralizing nouns, e.g.:
book – books hero – heroes woman – women
church – churches piano – pianos ox – oxen
life – lives day – days crisis – crises
chief – chiefs authority – authorities datum – data
2. pluralizing compound nouns
a) if the compound is written as one word, pluralize the final word, e.g.:
notebook – notebooks mouthful – mouthfuls
b) if the compound is hyphenated or written as separate words,
pluralize the major word:
mother-in-law – mothers-in-law editor in chief – editors in chief
c) if the compound has no noun within it, pluralize the final word:
also-ran – also-rans take-away – take-aways
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3. pluralizing numbers
a) form the plural of numbers written as words by adding ‘s’, e.g.:
They came by twos and threes.
b) Form the plural of figures by adding ‘s’ or an apostrophe plus ‘s’:
The 1990s / the 1990‟s
4. pluralizing letters, abbreviations and isolated words
a) the plural of capitalized letters, undotted abbreviations and isolated
words is formed by adding ‘s’ or an apostrophe plus ‘s’, e.g.:
four Cs / four C‟s no ifs / no if‟s three BMWs / three BMW‟s
b) the plural of lowercase letters and dotted abbreviations is formed by
adding an apostrophe plus ‘s’, e.g.:
six a‟s and five m‟s three M.A.‟s
Practice 7. Choose the correctly spelt plural in each pair:
1. chiefs – chievs 8. candys – candies
2. yourselfs – yourselves 9. opportunitys – opportunities
3. babies – babys 10. sons-in-law – son-in-laws
4. spoonfuls – spoonsful 11. two M.D.s – two M.D.‟s
5. soloes – solos 12. sells-out – sell-outs
Practice 8. Use the spelling rules to spell the following words:
1. palate + able 6. cause + ing 11. expel + ed
2. silly + est 7. prefer + ed 12. finance + ing
3. fate + ful 8. drip + ed 13. accuse + er
4. drag + ing 9. merry + ment 14. happy + ness
5. healthy + ly 10. escape + ing 15. spite + ful
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Practice 9. In the following passage by Andrew Evans, there are
some deliberately misspelt words. Make the necessary corrections:
Mr. Bunten‟s farm is sucessful largely because he has kept the size within reason
and because he is a skilful farmer. His heard is relatively small, consistting of only thirty-
five milkers plus thirty more cows, including the heifers. When most farmers in the
region expanded there operasion after World War II by building expensive silos and
milking systemes, Mr. Bunten kept his farm about the same size. Within a few years,
many of his neighbors had gone into debt, and some had failed alltogether. It was a sad
sceen for just about everybody.
We milk the cows in the mourning and at night. He gets up at 5:30, and I arive at 6
p.m. After geting down a dozen bales of hey, I dash around, feeding the cows and
prepareing the milking machines. I literaly run to complete the chores in the shortest
time posible. He never askes me to do them quickly; however, if I should be moveing
slowly, he‟ll say, “Geeze, boy, what took ya!” Usualy he doesn‟t have to say anything
because he‟s the type of person one wants to please – some one on the go all the time.
For a man of sixty-four he has unbeleivable endurence. Viewing his efforts as a
challenge, I try to keep up and win his respect. Fortunetely, he gives me the benifit of
the doubt much of the time.
Practice 10. Add the omitted -s endings where needed.
Example: Bill beat me at several game of darts.
Edited: Bill beat me at several games of darts.
1. Can you really get fifteen shave from one of those razor blade?
2. With perfect timing, the runner‟s powerful leg glided smoothly over a dozen hurdle.
3. Because pet owner abandoned them, small bands of monkey are now living in
southern Florida.
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4. The photographer locked themselves in steel cages to film great white shark in their
underwater environment.
5. The skinny man ordered two double cheeseburger and three vanilla shake.
Practice 11. Add the missing word (a, an, the, of, to, and) as
needed:
Example: Some people regard television as tranquilizer that provides temporary
relief from pain and anxiety modern life.
Edited:…..Some people regard television as a tranquilizer that provides
temporary relief from the pain and anxiety of modern life.
1. In the rest room, Jeff impatiently rubbed his hands under mechanical dryer, which
blew out feeble puffs cool air.
2. On February 10, 1935, The New York Times reported that eight-foot alligator had
been dragged out of city sewer by three teenage boys.
3. Gene dressed up as stuffed olive for Halloween by wearing green plastic garbage
bag and a red knitted cap.
4. Mrs. Hanson nearly fainted when she opened health insurance bill and saw
enormous rate increase.
5. At 4 A.M., all-night supermarket where I work hosts assortment of strange
shoppers.
6. With loud hiss, inflated beach ball suddenly shrank to size of orange.
7. The boiling milk bubbled over the sides the pot, leaving a gluey white film on stove
top.
8. Susan turned the answer page of the crossword book, pretended herself that she
hadn‟t, and turned back to her puzzle.
9. In order avoid stepping on the hot blacktop of parking lot, the barefoot boy tiptoed
along the cooler white lines.
10. The messy roommates used hubcaps for ashtrays scribbled graffiti on their own
bathroom walls.
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