We subjoin some rules for spelling, adapted from Laidlaw’s American Pronouncing Dictionary . [26]
Rule I.
Words ending in silent e after u or a consonant generally drop the e on taking an additional termination beginning with a vowel; as, sale, salable; plague, plaguy; sue, suing; eye, eying.
Exception I.—Words ending in ce and ge retain e before able and ous; as, service, serviceable; trace, traceable; courage, courageous; advantage, advantageous.
Exception II.—Compounds and prefixes retain e; as, firearms, foreordain, pole-axe, vice-admiral, fire-engine.
Remark.—From singe, springe, swinge, tinge, we write singeing, springeing, swingeing, tingeing, to distinguish from singing, springing, swinging, and tinging. Dyeing, from dye, retains e, to distinguish it from dying, the present participle of die. Mile retains e in mileage. Derivatives from proper names of persons retain e; as, daguerreotype, morseograph.
Rule II.
Words ending in silent e generally retain the e on taking an additional termination beginning with a consonant; as, bereave, bereavement; issue, issueless.
Remark.—Awful, awfully, awfulness, argument, argumentation, argumentative, woful, wofully, wofulness, duly, truly, and wholly, are undisputed exceptions; and abridgment, acknowledgment, judgment, misjudgment, prejudgment, lodgment, wobegone, and rhymster, are disputed exceptions. Some write abridgement, acknowledgement, judgement, misjudgement, prejudgement, lodgement, woebegone, and rhymester.
Rule III.
Words ending in ie change them into y before ing; as, lie, lying. The following words conform to this rule:—
lie
belie
outlie
lie
overlie
underlie
die
hie
tie
untie
vie
outvie
Rule IV.
Words ending in y preceded by a consonant generally change y into i on taking an additional syllable; as, mercy, merciful, merciless; defy, defied, defies, defieth, defiant; busy, busier, busiest, business; ply, pliers; porphyry, porphyritic.
Exception I.—Y after a consonant is not changed into i before ing or ish; as, dry, drying, dryish.
Exception II.—Compounds usually retain y; as, mercy-seat, county-town, dairy-maid, skylight.
Remark.—Dryer, dryest, dryly, dryness, shyer, shyest, shyly, shyness, are undisputed exceptions to the rule; and slyer, slyest, slyly, slyness, are disputed exceptions.
Rule V.
Words ending in y preceded by a vowel retain the y; as, gay, gayly, gayness, gayety; pray, prayer, praying, prayed, prays.
Remark.—From day, lay, pay, say, stay, are formed daily, laid, paid, said, saith, staid. The regular words dayly, layed, payed, sayeth, and stayed, are sometimes used.
Rule VI.
Monosyllables and words having the primary accent on the last syllable, when they end with a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, double their final consonant before an additional syllable that begins with a vowel; as, wet, wetter, wettest, wetting, wetted; drum, drumming, drummed; dispel, dispelling, dispelled.
Exception.—A final x, or the s in gas, should not be doubled; as, fix, fixes, fixed, fixing; annex, annexing; gases, gasefy.
Remark I.—U after q is never reckoned a part of a diphthong or triphthong; so that from quit are formed quitting, quitted; and from quag, quaggy.
Remark II.—This rule applies only to derivatives which retain the accent of their primitives, and not to such as in´ferable, in´ference, pref´erable, pref´erence, ref´erable, and ref´erence, from infer, prefer, and refer. To the forms infer´rible, refer´rible, which are sometimes met with, the general rule applies. Transfer´able, from transfer, is an exception to the general rule; the regular form transfer´rible is not often used. Although parallel´ogram, from par´allel, and modal´ity from mo´dal, remove the primary accent to the point of duplication, they do not double the final l. See Remark II. under Rule VII.
Rule VII.
A final consonant is not doubled when it is preceded by a diphthong, when the primary accent is either not on, or not retained upon, the last syllable, or when the additional syllable begins with a consonant; as, beat, beating, beaten; dif´fer, dif´fering, dif´fered, dif´ference, dif´ferent; prefer´, pref´erence; refer´, ref´erence; fit, fitful, fitly, fitness; ben´efit, ben´efited, ben´efiting.
Exception I.—Compounds that remove the primary accent from the point of duplication retain the double letter; as, broad´-brimmed, heel´-tapping.
Remark I.—When ly is affixed to words ending in l, the l is not considered doubled; as in cool-ly, real-ly, gravel-ly, royal-ly.
Remark II.—Nutmegged, kidnapping, kidnapped, kidnapper, zigzagging, zigzagged, excellence, and some others, are undisputed exceptions to the rule. There are nearly one hundred words, from which more than four hundred derivatives are formed, that are usually made exceptions to this rule. Webster is distinguished for making nearly all the derivatives conform to the rule. Webster and Smart accent the verb curv´et, on the first syllable, with which accentuation curveting and curveted are correct spellings; other orthoepists accent upon the last syllable, then curvet´ting and curvet´ted are correct.
Rule VIII.
Words ending in c accept of k before a termination beginning with e, i, or y; as, frolic, frolicked, frolicking; colic, colicky.
Illustrations.
colic
colicky
frolic
frolicking
frolicked
havoc
havocking
havocked
mimic
mimicking
mimicked
mimicker
physic
physicking
physicked
rollic
rollicking
rollicked
traffic
trafficking
trafficked
trafficker
talc
talcky
zinc
zinckiferous
(zinciferous)
zincky
Rule IX.
Words ending in a double letter preserve it double after a prefix or before a termination beginning with a different letter; as, op-press, mis-spell, in-thrall, oversee; see-ing, op-pressive, stiff-ness, woo-ed, still-ness, assess-ment.
Remark I.—Annul, until, twibil, and the conservative fulfil, or the Websterian fulfill, are the only exceptions to the first part of this rule extensively recognized by present usage. The conservative distil and instil are at variance; but the Websterian distill and instill, and also twibill, as written by Reid, are in harmony with the rule.
Remark II.—Pontific, and all other derivatives of pontiff, are exceptions to the latter part of this rule, unless an f is discarded in the primitive word, as Webster suggests and the derivation warrants. The derivatives of dull, full, skill, and will, are disputed exceptions: if spelled as Webster writes them, dullness, fullness, skillful, willful, they conform to the rule.
Rule X.
The plural is usually formed from the singular by adding s; as, brave, braves; night, nights; hymn, hymns.
Rule XI.
Nouns ending in o preceded by a vowel accept of s in the plural; as, cameo, cameos; studio, studios.
Illustrations.
agios
bagnios
bamboos
braggadocios
cameos
cuckoos
curculios
embryos
folios
imbroglios
intaglios
internuncios
koodoos
nuncios
olios
oratorios
pistachios
port-folios
punctilios
ratios
seraglios
solfeggios
studios
trios
Rule XII.
Nouns ending in y preceded by a vowel accept of s in the plural; as, money, moneys; attorney, attorneys; valley, valleys.
Rule XIII.
Nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant usually accept of es in the plural; as, echo, echoes; embargo, embargoes.
Remark.—There are more than fifty words that conform to this rule, and about thirty that accept of s only.
Illustrations.
archipelagoes
armadilloes
bilboes
bravadoes
bravoes
buffaloes
buffoes
calicoes
cargoes
desperadoes
echoes
embargoes
farragoes
frescoes
grottoes
gustoes
heroes
innuendoes
juntoes
lazarettoes
lingoes
lumbagoes
mangoes
manifestoes
mottoes
mulattoes
negroes
palmettoes
passadoes
peccadilloes
potatoes
prunelloes
punchinelloes
punctoes
ranchoes
recitativoes
relievoes
renegadoes
ritornelloes
rotundoes
stilettoes
supercargoes
testudoes
tomatoes
tornadoes
torpedoes
umboes
vetoes
violoncelloes
viragoes
volcanoes
zeroes
Exceptions.
albinos
cantos
centos
dominos
duodecimos
halos
hidalgos
inamoratos
lassos
limbos
major-domos
mementos
merinos
mosquitos
octavos
pianos
porticos
provisos
quartos
rancheros
ridottos
rondos
salvos
set-tos
sirocos
solos
torsos
tyros
It would be well if all words ending in o were made to conform to Rules XI. and XIII.
Rule XIV.
Nouns ending in ss, z, x, ch soft, and sh, accept of es in the plural; as, dress, dresses; buzz, buzzes; box, boxes; peach, peaches; dish, dishes.
Rule XV.
Nouns ending in y after a consonant change y into ies in the plural; as, city, cities; daisy, daisies.
Rule XVI.
Compound nouns whose parts are connected by a hyphen accept of the sign of the plural after that part which essentially constitutes the noun; as, knight-errant, knights-errant; son-in-law, sons-in-law; man-of-war, men-of-war; step-child, step-children; ember-day, ember-days; man-singer, men-singers.
Illustrations.
aides-de-camp
beaus-ideal or
beaux-ideal
cartes-blanche
charges-d’affaires
chevaux-de-frise
coups-de-main
courts-martial
cousins-german
daughters-in-law
fathers-in-law
gendarmes or
gens d’armes
jets d’eau
knights-errant
mesdames
men-of-war
messieurs
mothers-in-law
poets-laureate
porte-monnaies
prices-current
sergeants-at-arms
sisters-in-law
sons-in-law
step-children
step-fathers
valets-de-chambre
Remark I.—If no hyphen is used, the sign of the plural is always placed at the end; as, spoonful, spoonfuls.
Remark II.—The sign of the possessive case is always placed at the end of compound nouns; as, son-in-law’s house.
Rule XVII.
The compounds of man form their plural in the same manner as the simple word; as, fisherman, fishermen; man-of-war, men-of-war.
Exceptions.—The only exceptions to this rule are dragoman, Mussulman, Ottoman, talisman, Turcoman, German, Norman, and landamman, which accept of s.
Rule XVIII.
Of the terminations eive and ieve, and of the derivatives of each, the former are found after c, and the latter after other letters; as, conceive, conceit, receive, receipt; relieve, relief, relieving, thieve, thievish.
Illustrations.
achieve
aggrieve
bas-relief
belief
believe
conceit
conceivable
conceive
deceit
deceitful
deceive
disbelief
disbelieve
grief
grieve
inconceivable
lief
lieve
misbelief
misconceive
perceive
preconceive
receipt
receive
relief
relieve
relievo
reprieve
retrieve
sieve
thief
thieve
unbelief
unbeliever
undeceive