CHAPTER 30

Using u, ue, ew, oo, ou, etc.

In English, the oo sound can be spelled in an astonishing number of ways, yet in nearly half of the

eighteen samples given below, the letter u is not used, and in more than half of them the letter o is not
used. In two of them, neither the u nor the o is used.

(^) To add to the confusion, there are two distinct ways to pronounce this popular sound. Many of these
words have the simple oo sound that can be heard in glue and too. There are almost as many words that
are pronounced with a distinct yu sound that can be heard in beauty and view:
(^) Often this yu sound is a regionalism and must be respected when and where it is used, but it is
gradually disappearing and words that were once pronounced with a yu sound are now often pronounced
with the simple oo sound. A good example is the word nuisance. It may be nyusance or noosance.
Obviously, there are many words that will always be pronounced with the yu sound.
(^) Despite this plethora of possible spellings, there is a pattern to be seen and some general spelling rules
can be found.
Spelling rule #1: An extremely large group of words uses the letter u to create the oo sound,
sometimes with the silent e after the consonant, sometimes without it.
(^) There are about thirty words that start with the letter u and almost the same number end with it. The
following list is a small, representative sample.
(^) Spelling rule #2: The ue spelling is usually found at the end of a word:
(^) Note that no commonly used English word starts with ue.
The ue rarely appears in the middle of a word unless it is used with gu or qu:
(^) Spelling rule #3. The ew spelling is usually found at the end of a word:
(^) Note that there are only two commonly used English words that start with ew.