Recording Errors

70. Keep a list of all the words you misspell, copying them several times in correct form. Concentrate your effort upon a few words at a time—upon those words which you yourself actually misspell. The list will be shorter than you think. It may comprise not more than twenty or thirty words. Unless you are extraordinarily deficient, it will certainly not comprise more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty. Find where your weakness lies; then master it. You can accomplish the difficult part of the task in a single afternoon. An occasional review, and constant care when you write, will make your mastery permanent.

After this, and only after this, begin slowly to learn the spelling of words which you do not yourself use often, but which are a desirable equipment for all educated men. See the list under 79. Concentrate your efforts upon a few words at a time. It is better to know a few exactly than a large number hazily. Form the mental habit of being always right with a small group of words, and extend this group gradually.

Exercise:

Prepare for your instructor a corrected list of words which you have misspelled in your papers to the present time.

Pronouncing Accurately

71. Avoid slovenly pronunciation. Careful articulation makes for correctness in spelling.

Watch the vowels of unaccented syllables; give them distinct (not exaggerated) utterance, at least until you are familiar with the spelling. Examples: separate, opportunity, everybody, sophomore, divine.

Sound accurately all the consonants between syllables, and do not sound a single consonant twice. Examples: candidate, government, surprise (not supprise), omission (compare occasion), defer (compare differ).

Sound the g in final -ing. Examples: eating, running.

Pronounce the -al of adverbs derived from adjectives in -ic or -al. Examples: tragically, occasionally, generally, ungrammatically.

Do not transpose letters; place each letter where it belongs. Examples: perspiration (not prespiration), tragedy (not tradegy).Note.—The principle of phonetic spelling as stated above applies to many words, but by no means to all. The Simplified Spelling Board would extend this principle by changing the spelling of words to correspond with their actual sounds. It recommends such forms as tho, thru, enuf, quartet, catalog, program. If the student employs these forms, he must use them consistently. Many writers oppose simplified spelling; many advocate it; many compromise. Others desire to supplant our present alphabet with one more nearly phonetic, and prefer, until this fundamental reform takes place, to preserve our present spelling as it is.

Exercise:

Copy the following words slowly, pronouncing the syllables as you write: accidentally, accommodate, accurately, artistically, athletics (not atheletics), boundary, candidate, cavalry, commission, curiosity, defer, definite, description, despair, different, dining room, dinned, disappoint, divide, divine, emphatically, eighth, everybody, February, finally, goddess, government, hundred, hurrying, instinct, laboratory, library, lightning, might have (not might of), naturally, necessary, occasionally, omission, opinion, opportunity, optimist, partner, perform, perhaps, perspiration, prescription, primitive, privilege, probably, quantity, really, recognise, recommend, reverence, separate, should have (not should of), sophomore, strictly, superintendent, surprise, temperance, tragedy, usually, whether.

Logical Kinship in Words

72. Get help in spelling a difficult word by thinking of related words. To think of ridiculous will prevent your writing a for the second i of ridicule; to think of ridicule will prevent your writing rediculous. To think of prepare will prevent your writing preperation; to think of preparation will forestall preparitory. To think of busy will save you from the monstrosity buisness. To think of the prefixes re- (meaning again) and dis- (meaning not), and the verbs commend and appoint, will prevent your writing recommend or disappoint with a double c or s.Note.—The relationship between words is not always a safe guide to spelling. Observe four, forty; nine, ninth; maintain, maintenance; please, pleasant; speak, speech; prevail, prevalent. Do not confuse the following prefixes, which have no logical connection:

Exercise:

1. Write the nouns corresponding to the following verbs: prepare, allude, govern, represent, degrade.
2. Write the adjectives corresponding to the following nouns and the nouns corresponding to the following adjectives: desperation, academy, origin, ridiculous, miraculous, grammatical, arithmetical, busy.
3. Write the adverbs corresponding to the following adjectives: real, sure, actual, hurried, accidental, incidental, grammatical.
4. Copy the following pairs of related words or related forms of words: labor, laboratory; debate, debater; base, based; deal, dealt; chose, chosen; mean, meant.
5. Write each of the following words with a hyphen between the prefix and the body of the word: describe, description, disappoint, disappear, disease, dissatisfy, dissever, permit, perspire, prescription, preconceive, recommend, recollect, reconsider, antedate, antecedent, anticlimax, antitoxin.

Superficial Resemblances between Words

73. Guard against misspelling a word because it bears a superficial resemblance, in sound or appearance, to some other word. Most of the words in the following list have no logical connection; the resemblance is one of form only (angel, angle). But a few words are included which are different in spelling in spite of a logical relation (breath, breathe).

Exercise:

1. Insert to, too, or two: He is —— tired —— walk the ——miles —— the town. Then ——, it is —— late —— catch a car. It is —— minutes of ——. It is —— bad.
2. Insert lose or loose: You will —— your money if you carry it —— in your pocket. We are ——ing time. The sailor ——ens the rope. Did you —— your ticket?
3. Insert speak or speech: I was ——ing with our congressman about his recent ——. I —— from experience.
4. Insert plan or plane: The architect's —— was accepted. The carpenter's —— cuts a long shaving. The carpenter does not —— the house.
5. Insert quite or quiet: The baby is ——ly sleeping. She is —— well now, but last night she was —— sick. Be ——. Walk ——ly when you go.

Words in ei or ie

74.

Examples: believe, grief, chief; but receive, deceive, ceiling.

Exceptions: Neither financier seized either species of weird leisure. (Also a few uncommon words, like seignior, inveigle, plebeian.)

Rules based on a key-word, lice, Alice, Celia (i follows l and e follows c) apply after two consonants only, and do not help one to spell a word like grief. Rule 74 applies after all consonants.Note.—The words in which the sound is ee are the words really difficult to spell. When the sound is any other than ee (especially when it is a), i usually follows e.

Examples: veil, weigh, freight, neighbor, height, sleight, heir, heifer, counterfeit, foreign, etc.

Exceptions: ancient, friend, sieve, mischief, fiery, tries, etc.

Exercise:

Write the following words, supplying ei or ie: conc—t, retr—ve, dec—tful, n—ce, y—ld, p—ce, s—ge, s—ze, rec—pt, n—ther, w—rd, rel—ve, l—sure, f—ld, v—n, r—gn, sover—gn, sl—gh, br—f, dec—ve, r—n, f—nt, perc—ve, w—ld, gr—vous, —ther.

Doubling a Final Consonant

75. Monosyllables and words accented on the final syllable, if they end in one consonant preceded by a single vowel, double the consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel.

Examples: (a) Words derived from monosyllables: plan-ned, clan-nish, get-ting, hot-test, bag-gage, (b) Words derived from words accented on the final syllable: begin-ning, repel-lent, unregret-ted.Note 1.—There are four distinct steps in the application of this rule. (1) The primary word must be found. To decide whether begging contains two g's, we must first think of beg. (2) The primary word must be a monosyllable or a word accented on the final syllable. Hit and allot meet this test; open does not. Deferred and differed, preferred and proffered, committed (or committee) and prohibited double or refrain from doubling the final consonant of the primary word according to the position of the accent. The seeming discrepancy between preferred and preferable, between conferred and conference, is due to a shifting of the accent to the first syllable in the case of preferable and conference. (3) The primary word must end in one consonant. Trace, oppose, interfere, help, reach, and perform fail to meet this test, and therefore in derivatives do not double the last consonant. Assurance has one r, as it should have; occurrence has two r's, as it should have. (4) The final consonant of the primary word must be preceded by a single vowel. This principle excludes the extra consonant from needy, daubed, and proceeding, and gives it to running.Note 2.—After q, u has the force of w. Hence quitting, quizzes, squatter, acquitted, equipped, and similar words are not really exceptions to the rule.

Exercise:

1. Write the present participle (in -ing) of din (not dine), begin, sin (compare shine), stop, prefer, rob, drop, occur, omit, swim, get, commit.
2. Write the past tense (in -ed) of plan (not plane), star (compare stare), stop (compare slope), lop (not lope), hop (not hope), fit, benefit, occur (compare cure), offer, confer, bat (compare abate).

Final e before a Suffix Beginning with a Vowel

76. Words that end in silent e usually drop the e in derivatives or before a suffix beginning with a vowel.

Examples: bride, bridal; guide, guidance; please, pleasure; fleece, fleecy; force, forcible; argue, arguing; arrive, arrival; conceive, conceivable; college, collegiate; write, writing; use, using; change, changing; judge, judging; believe, believing.Note 1.—Of the exceptions some retain the e to prevent confusion with other words. Exceptions: dyeing, singeing, mileage, acreage, hoeing, shoeing, agreeing, eyeing. The exceptions cause comparatively little trouble. One rarely sees hoing or shoing; he often sees hopeing and inviteing.Note 2.—After c or g and before a suffix beginning with a or o the e is retained. The purpose of this retention is to preserve the soft sound of the c or g. (Observe that c and g have the hard sound in cable, gable, cold, go.)

Examples: peaceable, changeable, noticeable, serviceable, outrageous, courageous, advantageous.

Exercise:

1. Write the present participle of the following words: use, love, change, judge, shake, hope, shine, have, seize, slope, strike, dine, come, place, argue, achieve, emerge, arrange, abide, oblige, subdue.
2. Write the present participle of the following words: singe, tinge, dye, agree, eye.
3. Write the -ous or -able form of the following words: trace, love, blame, move, conceive, courage, service, advantage, umbrage.
4. Write the adjectives which correspond to the following nouns: force, sphere, vice, sense, fleece, college, hygiene.
5. Write the nouns which correspond to the following verbs: please, guide, grieve, arrive, oblige, prepare, inspire.

Plurals

77a. Most nouns add s or es to form the plural. Examples: word, words; fire, fires, negro, negroes; Eskimo, Eskimos; leaf, leaves (f changes to v for the sake of euphony); knife, knives.

b. Nouns ending in y preceded by a consonant (or by u as w) change the y to i and add es to form the plural.

• Examples: sky, skies; lady, ladies; colloquy, colloquies; soliloquy, soliloquies.
• Other nouns ending in y form the plural in the usual way. Examples: day, days; boy, boys; monkey, monkeys; valley, valleys.

c. Compound nouns usually form the plural by adding s or es to the principal word. Examples: sons-in-law, passers-by; but stand-bys, hat-boxes, writing-desks.

d. Letters, signs, and sometimes figures, add 's to form the plural. Examples: Cross your t's and dot your i's; ?'s; $'s; 3's or 3s.

e. A few nouns adhere to old declensions. Examples: ox, oxen; child, children; goose, geese; foot, feet; mouse, mice; man, men; woman, women; sheep, sheep; deer, deer; swine, swine.

f. Words adopted from foreign languages sometimes retain the foreign plural. Examples: alumnus, alumni; alumna, alumnÆ; fungus, fungi; focus, foci; radius, radii; datum, data; medium, media; phenomenon, phenomena; stratum, strata; analysis, analyses; antithesis, antitheses; basis, bases; crisis, crises; oasis, oases; hypothesis, hypotheses; parenthesis, parentheses; thesis, theses; beau, beaux; tableau, tableaux; Mr., Messrs. (Messieurs); Mrs., Mmes. (Mesdames).

Exercise:

Write the singular and plural of the following words: day, sky, lady, wife, leaf, loaf, negro, potato, tomato, pass, glass, boat, beet, flash, crash, bead, box, passenger, messenger, son-in-law, Smith, Jones, jack-o'-lantern, hanger-on, stratum, datum, phenomenon, crisis, basis, thesis, analysis.

Compounds

78a. Use a hyphen between two or more words which serve as a single adjective before a noun: iron-bound bucket, well-kept lawn, twelve-inch main, normal-school teacher, up-to-date methods, twentieth-century ideas, devil-may-care expression, a twenty-dollar-a-week clerk.

But when the words follow the noun, the hyphen is omitted. The lawn is well kept. Methods up to date in every way.

Also adverbs ending in -ly are not ordinarily made into compound modifiers: nicely kept lawn, securely guarded treasure.

b. Use a hyphen between members of a compound noun when the second member is a preposition, or when the writing of two nouns solid or separately might confuse the meaning: runner-up, kick-off; letting-down of effort, son-in-law, jack-o'-lantern, Pedro was a bull-fighter, a woman-hater, Did you ever see a shoe-polish like this?

c. Use a hyphen in compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine, and in fractions according to the following examples:

Twenty-three, eighty-nine; but one hundred and one. Twenty-third, one-hundred-and-first man. Three-fourths, four and two-thirds, thirty-hundredths, thirty-one hundredths.

But omit the hyphen in simple fractions when loosely used: Three quarters of my life are spent. One third of his fortune.

d. A hyphen is not used in the following common words: airship, altogether, anybody, baseball, basketball, everybody, football, goodby, herself, handbook, himself, inasmuch, itself, midnight, myself, nevertheless, nobody, nothing (but no one), nowadays, railroad, themselves, together, typewritten, wherever, without, workshop, yourself, newspaper, sunset.

e. For words that do not come within the scope of rules, consult an up-to-date dictionary. Compounds tend, with the passing of time, to grow together. Once men wrote steam boat, later steam-boat, and finally steamboat. New-coined words are usually hyphenated; old words are often written solid. The degree of intimacy between the parts of a compound word affects usage; thus we write sun-motor, but sunbeam; birth-rate, but birthday; cooling-room, but bedroom; non-conductor, but nonsense. The ease with which a vowel blends with the consonant of a syllable adjoining it affects usage; thus self-evident, but selfsame; non-existent, but nondescript; un-American, but unwise. Many compounds, however, are still uncontrolled by usage; whether they should be written as two words or one, whether with or without the hyphen, the dictionaries themselves do not agree.

Exercise:

Copy the following expressions, inserting hyphens where they are necessary: twenty two years old, twenty two dollar bills make forty dollars, twenty seven eighths inch boards, a normal school graduate, two handled boxes, a cloth covered basket, blood red sun, water tight compartment, sixty horse power motor, seven dollar bathing suits, a happy go lucky fellow, germ destroying powder, he had a son in law, passers by on the street, the kick off is at three o'clock, dark complexioned woman, silver tongued orator, a dish like valley, a rope like tail, a fish shaped cloud, a touch me not expression, will o' the wisp, well to do merchant, rough and tumble existence.

79. SPELLING LIST

Note 1.—The following words have more than one correct form, the one given here being preferred.

Note 2.—In a few groups of words American spelling and English spelling differ. American spelling gives preference to favor, honor, labor, rumor; English spelling gives preference to favour, honour, labour, rumour. American spelling gives preference to civilize, apprize; defense, pretense; traveler, woolen; etc. English spelling gives preference to civilise, apprise; defence, pretence; traveller, woollen; etc.