The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (24 page)

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.

Spelling rule #1: The
tch
is used after a short vowel. It is used mainly in single syllable words, but when used in multisyllable words, it will be part of a short vowel syllable:

Note that no commonly used English word starts with
tch.

Spelling rule #2: After a long vowel or a consonant, we usually use the simple
ch
:

But there are anomalies:

Note that both
breeches
and
britches
are correct, as each obeys the spelling rule.

C
HAPTER 22

Using
j, ge, dge

T
he letter
j
is a very underused letter. About seventy-five percent of the time, when we hear the
j
sound it is actually spelled with
g
or
dge.

Visitors to Britain will find that
curb
is spelled
kerb.
Both words follow the spelling rules; both are therefore correct.

Spelling rule #1: Except for a few exotic imports, the
j
is never used at the end of English words:

The
j
can be followed by any of the vowels except
y
, but it is never followed by a consonant except in the popular contraction
Jr (junior).

Spelling rule # 2: We use
ge
when a
j
sound is needed at the end of a word if the word has a long vowel sound or if there is a consonant following the vowel:

Spelling rule #3: We use
dge
if the word is a short vowel word and there is no consonant following the vowel. There are many of these words. They are usually single-syllable words, but there are also a few multi-syllable words.

When adding a suffix that begins with a hard vowel or a consonant, we would normally retain the final silent
e
, but when the
dge
is used, we drop the
e
because the
d
forms part of the soft
j
sound.

Note that some dictionaries allow a choice when adding
able,
but there is no logical reason to retain the
e
. Compare
knowledgeable
and
knowledgable.