Some basic spelling rules 1. Be careful of homophones - e.g. one/won, peace/piece, caught/court - think of the context 2. Be careful of commonly misspelt words = e.g, accommodation ~ numbers (ordinal/cardinal) ~ irregular verbs 3. Suffixes o -ed - etd © likeD, loved = consonant +y > -¥ tied = study > studlED (N.B. vowel +y +ed, e.g. playED) = doubling the final letter = there must be a vowel ‘sandwich’, i.e. the last three letters of the word must be consonant + short vowel + consonant = e.g. knitTED, but needED, helpED * quis considered, in this context, to be a consonant = words ending in -w, -x, -y do NOT follow this rule = eg. rowED = the stress must be on the final syllable = e.g. occurRED, aquitTED, but listenED = Beware of travel — travelLED (BrEng)/travelED (AmEng) o -ing - -e>-e+ing + make > makING, write > writiNG = ie > ie +ying = die > aviNG ~ doubling the final letter ~ same as for -ed + beginNING, preferRING = ie > +king = panickING = consonant +y +ING (the -y remains) + studyingo -ly (adverbs) = usually adjective + ly * beautifulLY, normalLy, unfortunateLy, immediateLY (Remember: the suffix ful for adjectives is only spelt with one -1!) = consonant +y > -y becomes ~i + happy > happily +ally + basicALLY, économicALLY 4. Prefixes = Common prefixes: dis-, il, im-, un-,ir-, in-, mis-, re-, co-, over-, under-, trans-, pre- ~ add prefixes to words without making any changes * appoint > DiSappoint, satisfied > DISsatisfied, persuade>DISsuade ie- /-ei- - The common rule is ‘’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ = believe but receive * For more details on spelling, see the chapter in A Practical English Grammar, Thomson and Martinet