Word Endings

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Word Endings

Published on Sunday, April 24, 2011 in Lexical Studies

Words ending in ce and ge

When you want to add a suffix starting with a or o leave the e in.

For example:-

manage + able	manageable
notice + able	noticeable
courage + ous	courageous

Exceptions:

prestige + ous

prestigious

Words ending in ie

When you want to add ing to verbs ending in ie, drop the e and change the i to a y.

For example:-

die - dying
lie - lying
tie - tying

Words ending in y after a consonant

When you want to add suffixes such -as, -ed, -es, -er, -eth, -ly, -ness, -ful and -ous to a word ending in y after a consonant, change the y to an i before adding the suffix.

For example:-

eighty + eth	eightieth
duty + es	duties
lazy + ness	laziness
mystery +ous	mysterious
beauty + ful	beautiful
multiply + ed	multiplied
busy + ly	busily

Words ending in y after a vowel

Keep the y when adding suffixes such as er, ing or ed.

For example:-

destroy	destroying	destroyed
pry	prying	pried
buy	buying	buyer
play	playing	player

You may be confused by some differences in spelling that are actually caused by the differences between American (AmE) and British (BrE) English spelling. It's not that one is right or better and the other wrong or worse, the trick is to learn one form of spelling and stick to it. Try not to mix them up.