234 English Grammar Demystifi ed
that doesn’t work with a print dictionary. For example, you hear praktis,anser, and
stor when you mean practice,answer, and store. How will you fi nd any of these
words in the dictionary? The answer for you may be a dictionary that lists the com-
mon misspelling, followed by the correct spelling. Look for a book called, How to
Spell It, by Harriet Wittels and Joan Greisman. In it, you’ll fi nd many misspellings,
each followed by the correct spelling in red.
If you use a computer, your word-processing program has a spell-checking func-
tion that will fi nd incorrectly spelled words and highlight them or even correct them
as you type. One caution, however: Although spell-checkers recognize when a word
is spelled incorrectly, they won’t always tell you if you’re using a word in the wrong
context. For example:
Don’t you think its to hot for baseball? (Correct: It’s, too)We chose there uniforms. (Correct: their)The city counsel made a decision regarding the new school. (Correct: council)On the other hand, if you fi nd rules extremely helpful and not too hard to remem-
ber, you may choose that route to better spelling. One caution: Don’t try to learn too
many rules at one time. Sometimes, however, a series of rules naturally go together.
One such rule has to do with adding prefi xes and suffi xes to words: Prefi xes are
added to the beginning of a word; suffi xes are added to the end.
RULE 1: ADDING A PREFIX
In most cases, you can add a prefi x to a word without changing the spelling of that
word.
Example: Add prefi x un- to necessary and you have unnecessary.Prefi x Meaning Root Word New Word
ir- not responsible irresponsible
un- not necessary unnecessary
pre- before fi x prefi x
Written Practice 10-2
Use the following negative prefi xes to make a new word from each of the
following words.