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8. An Odd Assortment of
Weird Words |
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BANANA: A
long, curved, yellow tropical fruit. If you pronounce the word to yourself
the way it would be pronounced in Central America, it should be easy to spell --
"bah nah nah" with each A sounding the same. In English,
however, the word is pronounced "buh na nuh" with the BA
sounding like the BU in BUT, the first NA sounding like the beginning of the
name NANCY, and the last NA sounding like NUH. This makes it very
difficult to sound out a word or to know how to spell it when you hear it.
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BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTY: In
French, this would be easy ....the letters EAU are always pronounced as Long O
(the name of the letter). In English, however, this letter combination is
pronounced sort of like YOO , or like a Long E sliding into a Long U.
Thus in English, BEAUTY would be pronounced "B - YOU TEE".
The only logical way to remember how to spell this word is to pronounce each
letter to yourself as you spell it -- "BE-A-U-TEE" or
"BE-A-U-TEE-FUL". If you get used to saying each letter to
yourself, then you will not forget any when you write the words.
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SNEAKY R'S: Two
common words in English contain R's that often are not pronounced, thus they are
often not written when the words are spelled: library and February.
The most important guide to correctly spelling these words is to pronounce them
correctly every time. "LI-BRAR-Y" AND
"FEB-RU-AR-Y."
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| MORE
SILENT LETTERS: Each of the following words contains a letter
that is not pronounced -- DOUBT,
DEBT, ISLAND, AISLE,
WRITE, WRIT, KNIT,
KNOT, WOULD, COULD,
KNOB. You can remember how to spell
some of the words by pronouncing the silent letters to yourself each time
you write them. Other words simply must be studied and memorized. |
| THE
SUPERFLUOUS "G" and "GH":
You have already studied the "EIGHT", "OUGH" and
"IGHT" families and some of their relatives (though,
thought, tough, rough, cough, enough, freight, weight, sleigh. weigh,
light, sight, night, fright, blight, right, etc.). Here
are some more: STRENGTH and LENGTH; STRAIGHT (rhymes with late);
TROUGH (rhymes with off); NIGH (rhymes with by); ALIGN and SIGN (rhyme
with dine); BROUGHT and FRAUGHT (rhyme with rot). We can think of no
logical reason to continue using "G" or "GH" in
these words, and yet it seems that no-one knows how to stop it.
Edition after edition, Dictionaries are printed with the same
ridiculous spellings in them and we are forced to study, practice and
memorize words that make no sense, but that is the good old American
way. |
| -ANCE
vs. -ENCE: There
is no simple way to know which words will end with -ance and which will
end with -ence other than REMEMBERING. The -ANCE list is shorter, so if
you memorize it, you should know that any words that end with the same
sound but are not on the -ANCE list must be spelled with -ENCE. EXCEPT
for
a few
words that end with -ENSE: (defense,
expense, immense, offense, pretense, suspense). So
now you have two lists to remember. Will it help to know that all of
the -ANCE, -ANCY, -ENCE and -ENCY words are nouns? Not really.
Will it confuse the issue to know that some of the -ANT and -ENT words are
nouns and some are adjectives? Certainly. |
-ABLE vs. -IBLE: Some
of our most common words add -ABLE to form their adjectives (eatable,
laughable, comfortable, regrettable, talkable, drinkable, readable,
unthinkable). Another group has double s before
-IBLE (accessible, repressible, admissible, possible,
compressible, permissible). Each of these words
except POSSIBLE has a noun that ends with -ION (repression,
admission, compression, permission). This pattern can be
extended to other -ION words (combustion = combustible,
destruction = destructible, digestion = digestible, division = divisible,
perception = perceptible). Another small group of
words uses -IBLE to form the adjective to preserve the soft C or G sound before
the suffix (see the C - G rule on the More Rules page): deducible,
eligible, intelligible, incorrigible, ineligible, invincible, legible,
etc. Nearly all other words with a -BLE ending use
-ABLE. Do you understand all of that?
| -ARY
vs. -ERY: Easy!
There are only two common words that end with -ERY -- CEMETERY and
STATIONERY (writing
paper, etc.) All
the other ones end with -ARY (auxiliary,
boundary, dictionary, elementary, honorary, imaginary, infirmary, library,
revolutionary, secretary, secondary, vocabulary, etc.) |
-ISE vs. -IZE: This
is another case where the best thing you can do is memorize the shorter list,
the -ISE words, and then figure that all other words that end with the same
sound will end with -IZE. Here is the full -ISE list: advertise,
advise, arise, chastise, compromise, demise, despise, disguise,
enterprise, exercise, franchise, merchandise, revise, supervise, surmise,
surprise, reprise. There
are only two words that end with -YZE: analyze,
paralyze.
| WORDS
ENDING IN -OUS: The
suffix -OUS means "full of". The most common error people
make is to add an " i " before the suffix (wrong
= grievious, right = grievous). Some
nouns that become adjectives when -OUS is added are: dangerous,
hazardous, humorous, marvelous, mountainous, murderous, poisonous,
slanderous. Nouns
that end with " E " must drop the " E " before
adding the -OUS: adventurous,
desirous, analogous. Two nouns change a final " F " to
" V " before adding -OUS: grief = grievous, mischief =
mischievous. Note: there is no " i " after
the " V ." In
a few cases, the final " E " is not dropped in order to keep the
soft C or G sound at the end: courageous,
advantageous, outrageous. Some
other words that end with " Y " change the last letter to "
E " before adding -OUS: beauteous,
bounteous, piteous, plenteous, but these words are not very common. |
Exercise A: Fill
in the missing " a " or " i " in the following short
passage.
The prosecuting
attorney protested that the evidence by the defendant about his tax_ble
income was inadmiss_ble. In the first place, it was not easily access_ble.
In the second place, although the evidence was originally accept_ble in a lower
court, the decisions in such courts are revers_ble.
Exercise B: Put the
missing " a " or " e " in the following words.
| complim_nt |
depend_nt |
acquaint_nce |
brilli_nce |
consci_nce |
| consist_nt |
exist_nce |
perman_nt |
conveni_nce |
appar_nt |
Exercise C: Add the correct
ending, -IZE or -ISE , to the following words.
| comprom___ |
burglar___ |
franch___ |
surpr___ |
terror___ |
| fertil___ |
enterpr___ |
neutral___ |
superv___ |
modern___ |
Exercise D: Change the following
nouns to adjectives by adding -OUS. Make any changes that may be
necessary.
| courage
= |
pity
= |
adventure
= |
poison
= |
| grief
= |
libel
= |
mountain
= |
mischief
= |
Check your own
work by referring back to the lesson or by using a dictionary.
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