Spelling Rules

Words like 'useful', 'grateful', 'wonderful' etc. have only one 'I'. When changed into Adverbs, the 'I' is doubled, e.g. usefully.

Verbs which end in a consonant plus 'e ', drop 'e' before adding 'ing'. The letter before 'e' is not doubled. e.g. come - coming, lose - losing.

Verbs which end in 'y ', do not drop 'y' before adding 'ing'. e.g. carry - carrying, study - studying, marry - marrying.

Words of one syllable, such as 'rob', 'hit', 'step', 'fat', 'big', which end in a single consonant with a single vowel before the final consonant, double the final consonant before adding 'ed', 'ing', 'er', 'est'. e .g . rob, robbed, robbing, robber: hit, hitting; step, stepping, stepped: fat. fatter, fattest: big, bigger, biggest: beg, begging, begged.

If a Noun or a Verb ends in 'y' and the letter before 'y ' is a consonant, change 'y ' to 'i' and add 'es'. But if the letter before 'y' is a vowel, add 's '. e .g

• City, cities
• cry, cries
• enemy, enemies
• buy, buys
• monkey, monkeys
• play, plays

 

Verbs like 'lie', 'tie', & 'die' change 'ie' into 'y' before adding 'ing'. e .g. lying, tying, dying.

If the letters 'i' & 'e' come together in a word and give the sound 'ee', put 'i' before 'e' unless the letter 'c ' is directly in front. e .g . thief, believe, chief, field: but receive, deceive, ceiling. (exception: seize).

Notice the spelling of the following words: With 'ou' - ought, bought, brought, fought, thought, sought. With 'au' - caught, taught, daughter.

Numbers such as 'twenty-one', 'sixty-five' etc have a hyphen: but there is no hyphen before or after 'and' e.g. one hundred and sixty-five.

The following are spelt as one word:

Myself	himself	ourselves	yourself	yourselves
themselves	herself	itself	oneself	(There is no word  'theirselves')
something	anything	everything
somebody	anybody	everybody
somewhere	anywhere	everywhere	nowhere	whenever
wherever	however	whatever	whichever	whoever
somehow	anyhow	another	inside	Outside, within
therefore	nowadays	afterwards	otherwise
earthquake	today	tomorrow	afternoon	whereas
cannot	into	throughout	without	nevertheless
football	Englishman.

Everyone  Anyone : When they mean 'everybody' and Anyone 'anybody'; but not in a sentence such as: Take every (any) one of them.

The following are separate words:

in order to	in spite of	in addition to
in front of	in charge of	in view of
in favour of	in fact	in short
in future	at last	at length
at least	at once	at all
of course	as well	all right
every day	could not

 Sometimes (He is sometimes late for class)

Some time (e.g. after some t ime: some time later)

Note:

an everyday affair (one word when used as an Adjective)