Words You Should Know How to Spell (57 page)

Unfortunately, most so-called rules about English spelling can take you only so far. So take a look at the following tips and start thinking about those execeptions.

• Dyeing
  (changing color) is an exception to the rule “Drop a final ‘e’ before adding ‘ing.’” Other exceptions include
  shoeing
  ,
  hoeing
  , and
  fleeing
  .
  

• When spelling
  minuscule
  , think “minus,” not “mini.” If you subtract material, you make something smaller, or even
  minuscule
  .
  

• This often
  misspelled
  word is a classic example of the prefix “mis-” followed by a word starting with an “s.” That's why there's a double “s.”
  

• The “k” in the middle of
  picnicking
  helps retain the pronunciation.
  

• Sieve
  is an example of the much-quoted “i-before-e” rule.
  

• Shoeing
  has three vowels in a row. This is one of those exceptions to the rule about dropping the vowel before “-ing.”
  

• You might see the variant
  spacial
  , but
  spatial
  is much more common for the adjective referring to space.
  

• Truly
  drops an e before the -ly while
  sincerely
  keeps it.
  

• A ruler of old Russia is most commonly spelled
  czar
  , and can also be spelled
  tsar
  or even
  csar
  , but
  czar
  is more common in American use and is the form almost always used informally to mean “someone in charge,” as in “grammar czar” or “budget czar.”
  

• Technically,
  whiskey
  is the proper spelling only for Irish whiskey (as opposed to the
  whisky
  from Scotland or other countries), but in the United States it's customarily used for all of them.
  

David Hatcher
(Winston-Salem, NC) has taught commu-nication skills for three universities and more than twenty government and private-industry clients. He has written and cowritten several books, workbooks, and other training materials on writing, vocabulary, proofreading, editing, and related subjects. Mr. Hatcher earned an MA from Indiana University. His writing has been published in the
Washington Post
, national magazines, and a collection of short stories by Mid-Atlantic writers.

Jane Mallison
(New York, NY) has taught on the middle school, high school, and college levels. She currently teaches at Trinity School in New York, where she was head of the English Department for more than twenty years. She has worked extensively with the writing section of the SAT tests and continues to work with the Advanced Placement English examination. She has an MA from Duke University, and is the author of several books on vocabulary development, grammar, and reading for pleasure. She was the runner-up in her junior high spelling bee, done in by the word “souvenir.”