The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (23 page)

The following words are complete anomalies to the entire rule:

Note that
lieutenant
is an interesting word. The British pronounce it
lef-tenant
, while the Americans pronounce it
loo-tenant.
The Latin root is
locum tenens
, a phrase that is still used by lawyers and which means a person acting for somebody else, an official representative. We still use the word
lieu (“in lieu of”)
, which is pronounced
loo
. Therefore, the American pronunciation is historically more accurate and linguistically correct.

C
HAPTER 20

Using
k, ck, ic, ac

T
o the student of English there must be times when the letters
c
and
k
appear to be interchangeable. Obviously they are not but we can not deny that there is some confusion. The Anglo-Saxons used the
c
when they needed a hard
k
sound and the
s
when they wanted a soft s sound, but the Normans introduced the
k
, which was soon followed by a flood of Latin and Greek words which often use the
c
when a hard
k
is called for. Add to this many hundreds of other imported words, and we have quite a mess. Over the years, however, spelling rules have emerged that serve to bring some order to the confusion.

And in North America,
cheque
is spelled
check,
despite the fact that the American Express Company sells traveler’s
cheques.

Spelling rule #1: The
ck
is used immediately after a short vowel. Usually these are single-syllable words, but this group may include multi-syllable words when the syllable is closed or a suffix is added:

Note that no commonly used English words begin with
ck.

Spelling rule #2: The
k
is used at the end of long vowel words and words that have a consonant after the vowel. This includes words that need a silent
e
:

Spelling rule #3: Many words that derive from Latin or Greek use a
c
for the
k
sound after a short vowel, especially words that end in
ic
or
ac
. They are almost always multisyllable word.

Note that the anomalies are
arc
and
zinc
:

Fewer than fifty words end in
ac
. About half of them are descriptive nouns:

Only a tiny handful of words end in
oc
:

Note that the words
flack
and
flak
are not the same. The first refers to publicity, whereas the second is an acronym from the German words
Fleiger abwehr kanonen
, or antiaircraft fire.

Visitors to Britain will find that
curb
is spelled
kerb.
Both words follow the spelling rules; both are therefore correct. Just to add to the confusion, in the last few decades many exotic new words using the
k
have been adopted and adapted into English.

A historical note:
Less than two hundred years ago,
public
and
domestic
were spelled
publick
and
domestick.

C
HAPTER 21

Using
ch
and
tch

H
undreds, perhaps even thousands, of English words contain the digraph
ch
. It can be used at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a word. The problem is when to use
ch
and when to use
tch
. The spelling rules are quite simple, and the anomalies number less than a dozen.