The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (41 page)

But there are two words that reverse the rule—
prize
and
prise.
Spelled with a
z
it is a noun, but spelled with an
s
it is a verb.

There are about a dozen words that are spelled with
ise
that are even more anomalous because of their various pronunciations:

In review, we can see that the four suffixes can be reduced to two major groups. In the first and largest, we have the words ending in
ize
. In the second, we have words that end in
ise
. These words may be nouns, verbs, or adjectives, but the
ise
ending is almost never a suffix. There are very few true anomalies. With
advertize, franchize, finalize,
and a few other words, it is interesting to note that the change in spelling is toward the spelling rule, not away from it.

C
HAPTER
42

Using
ical, acle, icle

H
ere is another set of suffixes that appear at first glance to be tricky but are actually quite simple.

Spelling rule #1: Words ending in
ical
are almost always adjectives. There are well over three hundred of them. A tiny sample:

Spelling rule #2: Words ending in
acle
and
icle
are almost always nouns. There are about three dozen of them.

Note that there is very little difference between the two suffixes acle and icle. Logically, they should all be spelled with the icle ending, but, because of the origin of the root word, we have a division:

(1) Words ending in
acle:

(2) And words ending in
icle:

Note that although the words in this group have an ending that sounds rather like
cul
there is no commonly used English word that actually ends in
cul.

And only four words end in
col:

C
HAPTER
43

Using
ant, ent, ance, ence, ense

H
undreds of words end in
ant
or
ent
, but, alas, time and usage have created such a tangle that there are few clear rules. This group of words contains nouns, adjectives, and even some verbs. The problem can be traced all the way back to the roots of many of these words and involves certain Latin conjugations. Obviously, this is no help to the modern student, and so the best we can do is list a few basic rules and a number of guidelines. .

The most common ending is
ent
, with roughly seventy-five percent of the words in this group. But there are so many words involved that a large number end in
ant
. Generally speaking, most of the words that end in
ant
are nouns, whereas most of the words ending in
ent
are adjectives. This, again alas, is by no means a general rule.

Spelling rule #1: After a hard
c
or a hard
g
, the suffix will be
ant:

Spelling rule #2: After a soft
c
or a soft
g
, the suffix will be
ent:

Spelling rule #3: There must be continuity:

Generally, the suffix
ent
indicates a quality or a characteristic. The word will probably be an adjective:

Generally, the suffix
ant
indicates a person or thing that does something. The word will probably be a noun: