The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules

CHAPTER 40 Using le, el, al, il, ol, ul, yl When we consider that all these endings make more or less the same sound, this is an ...

(^) Nor are there many words that end in il. If we exclude words that contain the diphthongs oi and ai (oil, soil, ail, tail, et ...

CHAPTER 41 Using ize, ise, yze, yse There are a great number of words that end in these spellings. The spelling rules that gover ...

(^) Three of these words are in the process of change. The word advertise is now quite often spelled advertize. If we are prepar ...

CHAPTER 42 Using ical, acle, icle Here is another set of suffixes that appear at first glance to be tricky but are actually quit ...

CHAPTER 43 Using ant, ent, ance, ence, ense Hundreds of words end in ant or ent, but, alas, time and usage have created such a t ...

(^) On the eastern side of the Atlantic, licence is the noun while the verb is license. On the western side of the Atlantic, lic ...

CHAPTER 44 Using sy and cy Hundreds of English words end in either sy or cy. Words ending in cy are most common and outnumber th ...

CHAPTER 45 Using igh, ough, augh Without a doubt. the most annoying spellings in the English language are the ancient igh, ough, ...

(8) The ay sound with eigh and aigh: (^) Note that straight is the only word in this group that uses the ai spelling. There are ...

CHAPTER 46 Using f, ff, ph, gh The f sound can be produced in four different ways, but by far the most common is the single f, w ...

Making the f sound with ph is quite another matter. Almost all of the sixty or more commonly used words, from photo and phone to ...

CHAPTER 47 Using wh and h Hundreds of English words use the wh digraph. It usually appears at the beginning of a word and never ...

(^) The h is often called a silent letter. This is partly true. When it is sounded, it is very rarely heavily aspirated. It is s ...

CHAPTER 48 Using of and off These two words are not true homophones. The preposition of has a soft v sound, whereas the adverb o ...

CHAPTER 49 Using et and ette The French influence on the English language is still very strong. It shows itself not only in the ...

CHAPTER 50 Using less and ness The suffixes less and ness are extremely popular and deserve some attention because the spelling ...

CHAPTER 51 Using fore and for The prefixes fore and for should not be confused with the preposition for nor with the number four ...

CHAPTER 52 Using anti, ante, anto These prefixes can be confusing, but they are good examples of how one small letter can make a ...

CHAPTER 53 Using in, into, on, onto In, into, on, and onto are often used incorrectly, not only in casual conversation, but also ...