The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules
Picture


Master the spelling rules of English, and you’re halfway to understanding its grammar and pronunciation, along with word origins, meanings and usage.

English, with more words that any other European language, is a “polyglot” tongue, having gathered, over the centuries, words from almost every language on the planet. 

On the surface, English spelling rules appear to be nothing less than consistently inconsistent. Yet, in fact, there are logical rules governing the spelling of most words, and surprisingly few exceptions to those rules. The best part? Once you grasp those rules, many other aspects of the language reveal themselves.

Enter The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules, the most complete and detailed guide on English spelling rules ever written.

While, to the untrained eye, English spelling seems to offer abundant opportunities for confusion, the Guide defuses these linguistic minefields one by one, covering such areas as:

  • Vowels, the Apostrophe, Contractions, Plurals and Past Tense
  • Comparatives/Superlatives, Prefixes/Suffixes, and the Silent Consonants
  • The Silent e, the Soft/Hard c & g, the Single/Double l, the i before e Rule, etc. 
  • The “sound-alike” dipthongs: oy/oi, ay/ai, au/aw, ou/ow, and countless others, including the dreaded “shuns”: tion, sion, cion, tian, cian (+ four others!)
  • And much, much more…

Written for the layperson (not university professors), The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules represents a culmination of the author’s thirty years teaching English to non-English-speaking students, both in North America and overseas, as well as explaining English spelling to English speakers.

Non-English speakers (and natives as well!) can use this definitive guide as the ultimate “decoder” to the often-vexing vagaries of English spelling. Writers, teachers, editors, and anyone else (spelling-bee competitors, too!) both charmed and challenged by this marvelous language will find The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules a treasure trove of surprisingly fascinating information that only begins with spelling, while serving as a gateway to a far richer understanding of the language as a whole.
Review a sample page and the extensive Table of Contents

Sample Page from the Guide
Click image to enlarge the page.
Table of Contents

Introduction:
    Noah Webster
    Spelling Reform
    Melville (Melvil) Dewey
    Four Guidelines for Spelling Reform
    A Note on Usage in This Book
Chapter 1: Syllables
Chapter 2: Vowels
Chapter 3: Vowel plus r
Chapter 4: The Apostrophe
Chapter 5: Contractions
Chapter 6: The Silent e
Chapter 7: The Letter v
Chapter 8: Comparatives and Superlatives
Chapter 9: Plurals
Chapter 10: The Past Tense
Chapter 11: Prefixes and Suffixes
Chapter 12: Single or Double l
Chapter 13: Double the Consonant
Chapter 14: Soft and Hard c
Chapter 15: Combinations Using c
Chapter 16: Soft and Hard g
Chapter 17: Changing the y to i
Chapter 18: Using qu Plus a Vowel
Chapter 19: The i before e Rule
Chapter 20: Using k, ck, ic, ac
Chapter 21: Using ch and tch
Chapter 22: Using j, ge, dge
Chapter 23: Using oy and oi
Chapter 24: Using ay and ai
Chapter 25: Using au and aw
Chapter 26: Using ou and ow
Chapter 27: Using oe, ow, oa
Chapter 28: Using or, ore, oar, our
Chapter 29: Using y, ee, i, ea ie, ,ey
Chapter 30: Using u, ue, ew, oo, ou, etc.

Chapter 31: Using al, tial, cial, sial
Chapter 32: Using efy and ify
Chapter 33: Using cede, sede, ceed, seed
Chapter 34: Using er, or, ar, re, our
Chapter 35: Using y, ry, ary, ery, iry, ory, ury, yry
Chapter 36: Using ly, ally, ely, ily, lly, uly
Chapter 37: Using able and ible
Chapter 38: Using ous, ious, eous, uous
Chapter 39: Using tion, sion, cion, tian, cian, xion, ssion, shion, sian
Chapter 40: Using le, al, el, il, ol, ul, yl
Chapter 41: Using ize, ise, yze, yse
Chapter 42: Using ical, acle, icle
Chapter 43: Using ant, ent, ance, ense
Chapter 44: Using sy and cy
Chapter 45: Using igh, ough, augh
Chapter 46: Using f, ff, ph, gh
Chapter 47: Using wh and h
Chapter 48: Using of and off
Chapter 49: Using et and ette
Chapter 50: Using less and ness
Chapter 51: Using fore and for
Chapter 52: Using ante, anti, anto
Chapter 53: Using in, into, on, onto
Chapter 54: The Schwa
Chapter 55: Silent Consonants: h, g, k, p, w, b, l, n, t, c, d, s, m, r, ch
Chapter 56: Hyphens
Chapter 57: Names
Chapter 58: Linguistic Terminology
Chapter 59: Acronyms
Chapter 60: Dictionaries
Chapter 61: English and American Accents