Jane Straus - Adding Suffixes
Adding Suffixes: To Double or not to Double Consonants
Jane Straus is the author of The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation and Enough is Enough! and developer of GrammarBook.com
Do you ever wonder if you should double a letter when adding a suffix? For
example, why does shop become shopping, not shoping since hope
becomes hoping, not hopping?
This week's tip will help you spell correctly when adding suffixes. We have
Lawrence K. to thank for sending this suggestion as well as for many of the
examples.
Tip: When adding a suffix, double the final consonant if the preceding
vowel would otherwise change from short to long.
Example: shop /
shopping
Explanation: Without the additional "p," the pronunciation
would rhyme with hoping.
Example: bat / batted
Explanation: Without the additional "t," the pronunciation
would rhyme with gated.
Of course, what kind of English rule would we have without exceptions? (A
consistent one?)
According to the tip, transit and profit should both have their
consonants doubled when adding a suffix. Otherwise, the "i" becomes
long. However, this is not the case.
Examples: transit / transited / transiting
profit / profited / profiting
In an effort to make us feel even less secure with our spelling, some words are
spelled correctly by either doubling the consonant or not.
Example: travel / traveling OR travelling (British preference)
The moral of the story is that we often have no choice but to look these words
up or rely on spell checkers that don't always catch these exceptions.
Pop Quiz
1. I am writing / writting my memoirs.
2. I need a new fited / fitted sheet for my bed.
3. She felt traped / trapped in her job.
4. The boat was propeled / propelled by jet fuel.
5. This document needs formating / formatting.
6. The announcer recaped / recapped the plays.
7. Her remains were intered / interred at the nearby ceremony.
8. His book still hasn't been edited / editted.
9. She hoped that meditating would help her become enlightened / enlightenned.
10.Labeling / labelling your files thoughtfully will help you find them again
later.
Pop Quiz Answers
1. I am writing my memoirs.
2. I need a new fitted sheet for my bed.
3. She felt trapped in her job.
4. The boat was propelled by jet fuel.
5. This document needs formatting.
6. The announcer recapped the plays.
7. Her remains were interred at the nearby ceremony.
8. His book still hasn't been edited.
9. She hoped that meditating would help her become enlightened.
10.Labeling or Labelling your files thoughtfully will help you find them again
later.
