This section is from the book "Two Years' Course In English Composition", by Charles Lane Hanson. Also available from Amazon: Two Years' Course In English Composition.
Many persons find rules useful. For them the following are included:
1. Monosyllables, and words accented on the last syllable, which end in a single consonant following a single vowel, double the final consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel: as, beg, beggar; regret, regretted.
Note. In the derivative, if the accent falls on a different syllable, the rule does not apply: as, refer, reference.
2. Final y following a consonant changes to i before a suffix: as, busy, business; library, libraries; spy, spies.
Exceptions: i. Before ing and ish the y is kept to avoid doubling the i: as, carry, carrying; baby, babyish.
2. y is not changed in derivatives of wry, sky, shy, sly, spry.
Note. Words ending in y following a vowel are regular, except lay, laid; pay, paid; say, said; stay, stayed or staid.
3. Words ending in an unaccented e drop the e before a suffix beginning with a vowel: as, force, forcible; invite, invited; desire, desirable.
Exceptions : 1. Hoeing, mileage, shoeing, toeing. 2. Dyeing, singeing, and tingeing keep the e to distinguish these words from dying, singing, and tinging.
3. Words ending in ce and ge keep the e before able and ous in order to retain the soft sound of c and g: as, courage, courageous; peace, peaceable.
4. Words ending in ie drop the e and change the i to y before adding ing (to avoid doubling the i): as, die, dying; lie, lying; tie, tying.
4. In words in which the diphthongs ei and ie are pronounced e, as in he, c is followed by ei, all other letters by ie: as, ceiling, receive, piece, siege, niece. Seize, leisure, and weird are exceptions.
181. State the rule for spelling which, on the whole, you consider best worth remembering, and illustrate its use by three examples.
 
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