The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (30 page)

Spelling rule #6: Another small group of words uses
ey
to form the long
e
sound:

Note that there is, however, a small group of words that have the
ey
spelling, but it is pronounced with the long
a
sound:

Note that three words—
bogey, bogy
, and
bogie
—illustrate the amusing complexity of the words in this group. They are all pronounced the same, but one is a golfing term, the second a ghost, and the third a set of train wheels.

Sometimes the sound is the same but the spelling differs. Take that famous alcoholic beverage. In the United States and Ireland, it is spelled
whiskey
, but the Canadians, the Scots, and the English spell it
whisky
. The original Scots Gaelic word was
uisge
, and the Irish Gaelic word was
uisce
. Just to make it more interesting, the Scots call it
scotch
, a word that they never, ever use to describe things Scottish.

Historical note:
In the overly quaint Ye Olde Tea Shoppe, the word
ye
was originally pronounced
the
. The
y
takes the place of an ancient letter called a
thorn
, now no longer used, that had the
th
sound. The word
yclept
, much loved by history buffs, is more properly
clept
, as the prefix y indicates the past participle only.

It is fascinating to review the variety of sounds that can be produced by the letter
y
alone or in combination. Take, for example, a word of French origin,
quay
. Usually, it is pronounced
key
, but in some regions it is called a
cay
and pronounced
kay
, while in still other parts it may be pronounced
kway
.

It is clear that the simple
y
is the logical ending for most of the words below. The
ey
and the
ie
endings are illogical but they are still used.

As our spelling slowly changes, there is a natural move towards a more logical spelling. The word
ecstasie
has long been replaced by
ecstasy
, and
horsey
is now commonly spelled
horsy
.

C
HAPTER 30

Using
u, ue, ew, oo, ou, etc
.

I
n English, the
oo
sound can be spelled in an astonishing number of ways, yet in nearly half of the eighteen samples given below, the letter
u
is not used, and in more than half of them the letter
o
is not used. In two of them, neither the
u
nor the
o
is used.

To add to the confusion, there are two distinct ways to pronounce this popular sound. Many of these words have the simple
oo
sound that can be heard in
glue
and
too
. There are almost as many words that are pronounced with a distinct
yu
sound that can be heard in
beauty
and
view
:

Often this
yu
sound is a regionalism and must be respected when and where it is used, but it is gradually disappearing and words that were once pronounced with a
yu
sound are now often pronounced with the simple
oo
sound. A good example is the word
nuisance
. It may be
nyusance
or
noosance
. Obviously, there are many words that will always be pronounced with the
yu
sound.

Despite this plethora of possible spellings, there is a pattern to be seen and some general spelling rules can be found.

Spelling rule #1: An extremely large group of words uses the letter
u
to create the
oo
sound, sometimes with the silent
e
after the consonant, sometimes without it.

There are about thirty words that start with the letter
u
and almost the same number end with it. The following list is a small, representative sample.

Spelling rule #2: The
ue
spelling is usually found at the end of a word:

Note that no commonly used English word starts with
ue
.

The
ue
rarely appears in the middle of a word unless it is used with
gu
or
qu
: