The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (10 page)

The possessive apostrophe plus
s
should be no problem yet almost daily we can find examples of its misuse. Usually the error involves the plural. The rule is clear:
never use an apostrophe when a non-possessive plural is intended
.

C
HAPTER 5

Contractions

C
ontractions are as simple as they are useful. The apostrophe takes the place of a missing letter (or letters) and the two words are combined. In almost all cases, the first of the two words is not changed. The letters are dropped from the second word. Usually there is only one letter deleted, but there may be as many as four.

“Ain’t is never acceptable.”

The unusual contraction is
won’t
for
will not
. Many years ago, it was
willn’t,
but that is now archaic. There are a few other contractions that are now archaic, including
e’en
for
even
.

Sometimes a contraction may have two meanings:

There is one contraction that is frowned upon and never used by educated persons. This is
ain’t,
which is the contraction for
am not
. The correct word,
amn’t,
long ago fell into disuse and is now considered both awkward and archaic. Since there is no other contraction for
am not,
one would expect
ain’t
to be quite acceptable. After all it has been around for over two hundred years. The main reason that
ain’t
is not acceptable is that it has been, and still is, terribly overused and usually misused besides. It is often used in place of
haven’t, hasn’t, isn’t, aren’t,
and a number of other negative contractions.

English is a marvelously flexible language so if
ain’t
is not acceptable and
amn’t
is archaic, we can simply move the apostrophe to the preceding word and use
I’m not
instead. It would seem that this solves the problem, except that most contractions can be used in the interrogative—
haven’t I? isn’t it? don’t I?
etc. Since we cannot use
amn’t I?
we have to compromise with
aren’t I?
or
am I not?
Because these seem awkward, however, whether we like it or not, the unacceptable
ain’t
will probably be with us for many more years.

C
HAPTER 6

The Silent
e

O
ne extremely useful feature of English spelling is the silent
e
. We place it at the end of a word in order to change the sound of the preceding vowel and thus create a new word. For example,
hat
becomes
hate, spin
becomes
spine,
etc. Not only does the silent
e
replace a vowel diphthong, but it also allows us to use vowel combinations to produce still other words, for example,
mete, meet, meat
. Unfortunately, we tend to overuse it, and sometimes there is confusion as to when to drop and when to retain the silent
e
. The basic spelling rules are quite simple.

Spelling rule #1: Retain the silent
e
when a consonant suffix is added:

Spelling rule #2: Drop the silent
e
when a vowel suffix is added:

Spelling rule #3: The soft and hard
c
and g rules must be observed. Therefore, words that end in a soft
c
or a soft g and are followed by a suffix that begins with a hard vowel or a consonant must retain the silent
e
.

Because of the large number of words that use the silent
e,
it is only to be expected that there might appear to be numerous exceptions and anomalies. Most of these apparent anomalies fit into patterns and obey the rules.

Spelling rule #4: The digraph
dg
is always considered soft, so the silent
e
is not needed when adding suffixes:

Spelling rule #5: There are very few commonly use English words that end in
u;
the ending is usually
ue
. In almost every
case, the silent
e
is dropped from these words when adding a suffix:

Spelling rule #6: The silent
e
is retained in words that end in
oe
when adding the suffix
ing: