CHAPTER 7

The Letter v

The letter v may appear anywhere in a word except at the end. No commonly used English word ever

ends in a v, and this explains a large inconsistency that students are quick to notice.
The silent e is used to modify the vowel that precedes it, but the silent e must be added to any word that
should logically end in v. Therefore, we get have instead of hav and active instead of activ, and we spell
sleeve with a superfluous e. There are many other examples.
From this point of view, the rule is illogical. But it does have the virtue of uniformity. Some of our
spelling rules leave us with strange anomalies, but this rule is so simple that there are almost no
exceptions.

(^) Note that one English word ends in a v sound but is spelled with an f. The word of is the only word
ending in an f that has the soft v sound.