The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (39 page)

There is also a very small group of words with other endings:

Considering the hundreds of words that use the
shun
ending, it is truly astonishing how many of them fit neatly into the spelling rules and how very few are anomalies.

C
HAPTER
40

Using
le, el, al, il, ol, ul, yl

W
hen we consider that all these endings make more or less the same sound, this is an extraordinary range of possibilities. A careful look will show that there are quite valid reasons and there is a pattern to it all. It is obvious that poor pronunciation often leads to confusion between these endings. The
al
suffix, for example, can be easily distinguished if it is clearly pronounced, but the
el
suffix is all too often slurred into a
le
or a schwa sound. The three most common endings are
le, el,
and
al
. The problem is simplified if we bear in mind the difference between an
angel
and an
angle.

Spelling rule #1: If the root ends in a soft
c
or a soft
g
, it cannot be followed by
le
or
al,
it must therefore use
el:

Spelling rule #2: If the ending follows a hard
c
or a hard
g
, it cannot be
el
and must therefore be either
le
or
al
:

Spelling rule #3: The vast majority of words ending in
al
are adjectives:

Note that words ending in the silent
e
will lose the
e
before the
al
:

Spelling rule #4: A large majority of words ending in
cle
or
ckle
are nouns:

In English spelling, the
le
never follows the letters
m, n, r, v,
and
w
. Only six words use
sle
:

The following consonants are usually followed by
le
:
b, d, f, g, p,
and
z
. There are a few exceptions:

The letter
t
may be followed by
le
,
el
, or
al
:

The
yl
ending is found mainly on scientific words such as
pterodactyl
and
chlorophyl,
leaving us with only two commonly used words—
sibyl
and
idyl
.

Very few words end in
ul
. If we exclude almost two hundred words that end in
ful (useful, beautiful,
etc.) and words containing the diphthongs
au
and
ou (haul, maul, ghoul, foul
, etc.), we are left with only four
ul
words:

Words ending in
ol
are also quite rare. If we exclude words containing the diphthong
oo (school, wool
, etc.), we are left with fewer than two dozen
ol
words, and one third of these are chemical terms: