The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (38 page)

If the root ends in
u,
the
u
is retained and is always pronounced clearly:

In the largest group of
ious
words, the
i
is always pronounced clearly and with the long e sound:

If the root ends in an
f
, it will change to a
v
. There are only two commonly used words in this group—
grievous
and
mischievous
(which has only three syllables, not four).

Up to this point the spelling rules for the
ous
words are clear and logical, but there are at least fifty commonly used English words that have the
eous
ending, even though the
e
is not protecting a soft
g
and is clearly pronounced. Logically, most of these words should use an
i
. But they do not.

C
HAPTER
39

Using
tion, sion, ssion, tian, cian,
cion, shion, xion, sian, cean

T
he
tion
ending, in all its variations, is usually used to turn a verb into a noun. There are hundreds of examples. This
“shun”
ending can be produced in about ten different ways. If this seems rather excessive, there is a logical pattern. Interestingly, there is no commonly used English word that uses
shun
as an ending, apart from the word
shun
.

Spelling rule #1: By far the majority of words in this category will use the
tion
ending:

Spelling rule #2: The suffix
sion
is a variation of
tion
and is usually used after roots ending in
d, s
with a silent
e
, and sometimes
t
:

Words ending in double
s
will be spelled
ssion:

Words ending in
mit
will also use the double
s
:

Words ending in
cede
and
ceed
also use the double
s
:

Spelling rule #3: The
cian
ending is almost always used to indicate a trade, skill, or a profession:

The
tian
ending is similar to
cian,
but usually indicates a place of origin or a belief:

Note that sometimes these suffixes appear to be interchangeable, but they are not. They may have to be spelled with a
c
or an
s
or another consonant, depending on the root word.

Fewer than half a dozen words use
xion.
Some writers still insist on
inflexion
and
genuflexion
instead of
inflection
and
genuflection,
but these are archaic forms. There are only five words remaining, and one of these is slowly changing.
Complexion
is becoming
complection
.