Spelling Rules

Examples	Exceptions
“i” before “e” Except after “c”, Or when sounded as “a” As in neighing and weigh.	believe, relief, priest, friend, field receive, perceive, ceiling weight, freight, beige, neigh, vein	seize, weird, heir, caffeine, foreign, protein, reign, sovereign, leisure, either, neither, height, sleight, forfeit, heifer
Final consonants of verbs (EXCEPT“h”, “w”, “x” or “y”) are doubledbefore a suffix which begins with a vowel	pat/patted/patting, big/bigger/biggest, occur/occurred/occurring, admit/admitted/admitting, cut/cuttable	show/showed/showing, vex/vexed/vexing, toy/toyed/toying, bus/bused/busing, prefer/preference, confer/conference
Final consonants of verbs are NOT doubled before suffixes when the word ends in more than one consonant	frown/frowned/frowning, help/helped/helping, match/matched/matching
Final consonants of verbs are also NOT doubled when the preceding vowel is unstressed (EXCEPT in the case of “l” in Britain and Canada)	enter/entered/entering, visit/visited/visiting, benefit/benefited/benefiting, devil/devilish, cancel/cancelled/cancelling (Br./Can.)	handicap/handicapped/handicapping, kidnap/kidnapped/kidnapping, focus/focussed/focussing (can be spelled with single or double “s”), worship/worshipped/worshipping (can be spelled with single or double “p”)
Final consonants of verbs are also NOT doubled when the preceding vowel sound is spelled with 2 vowels	shout/shouted/shouting, dread/dreaded/dreading, reveal/revealed/revealing
Verbs ending in a vowel then “-c”, add a “k” before suffixes like “-ed”, “-ing” and “-er”	mimic/mimicked/mimicking, frolic/frolicked/frolicking, picnic/picnicked/picnicker
Verbs ending in an unpronounced “-e”, keep the “e” before a suffix which begins with a consonant	care/careful, time/timeless, appease/appeasement, like/likeness	true/truly, whole/wholly, due/duly, argue/argument, awe/awful, nine/ninth, wise/wisdom
Verbs ending in an unpronounced “-e”, drop the “e” before a suffix which begins with a vowel	bake/baking, guide/guidance, craze/crazy, note/notable, lustre/lustrous, creative/creativity	canoeing, hoeing, shoeing, singeing, dyeing,
Words ending in a consonant then “-y” change the “y” to “i” before a suffix (UNLESS the suffix starts with “i”)	beauty/beautiful, defy/defiance, merry/merrier, heavy/heaviness, salary/salaried	cry/crying, study/studying
Words ending in a vowel then “-y”, keep the “y” before a suffix	obey/obeying, gay/gayest, journey/journeying, annoy/annoyance, day/daytime
Verbs ending in “-ie”, change the “ie” to “y” before adding “-ing”	tie/tied/tying, die/died/dying
Nouns ending in a soft “-ce” or “-ge”, keep the “e” before the suffixes “-able” and “-ous”	peace/peaceable, notice/noticeable, courage/courageous
Nouns ending in “-s”, “-z”, “-x”, “-sh” or “-ch”, add “-es” for plural, not just “-s”	glass/glasses, buzz/buzzes, box/boxes, fez/fezes, bush/bushes, switch/switches	quiz/quizzes
Nouns ending in “-o”, add “-es” for plural, not just “-s”	potato/potatoes, echo/echoes, tomato/tomatoes, hero/heroes	studios, pianos, radios, solos, zoos, kangaroos
Nouns ending in “-y”, change the “y” to “i” and add “-es” for plural(EXCEPT if preceded by “e”)	baby/babies, poppy/poppies, spy/spies, try/tries	key/keys, monkey/monkeys, alley/alleys, valley/valleys, chimney/chimneys
Nouns ending in “-f” or “-fe”, change the “f” to “v” and add “-es” for plural (EXCEPT if ending in "-ff")	thief/thieves, wolf/wolves, knife/knives, elf/elves	chiefs, handkerchiefs, beliefs, oafs, roofs, proofs, safes sheriffs, plaintiffs, staffs, tariffs
Nouns ending in “-is” change to “-es” for plural	crisis/crises, analysis/analyses, thesis/theses, synopsis/synopses
“Full” becomes “-ful” when added to the end of a word	spoon/spoonful, wish/wishful
“All” becomes “al-” and “well” becomes “wel-” when added to the start of word	also, already, although, altogether welcome, welfare
Verbs ending in the sound “-cede” are spelled “-cede” apart from 4 exceptions	intercede, accede, concede, precede, recede, secede	succeed, exceed, proceed, supersede