Spelling Rulles -part I 

Rule 1

When a weak verb ends in a short vowel + consonant, the final consonant is not doubled to form the past tense, unless the accent falls on the last syllable.

Budget – budgeted (NOT budgetted)

• Offer – offered (NOT offerred)
• Benefit – benefited (NOT benefitted)

Notes

Worship is an exception to this rule. Its past tense is formed by doubling the final consonant.

• Worship – worshipped (NOT worshiped)

If the accent falls on the last syllable, the consonant is doubled even if the word ends in a short vowel + consonant.

So we have

• Occur – occurred (NOT Occured)
• Transfer – transferred (NOT transfered)
• Begin – beginning (NOT begining)

If the final consonant is ‘l’ , it is always doubled.

• Travel – travelled
• Level – leveled

Parallel is an exception to this rule. Its past tense is paralleled (NOT parallelled). Nowadays traveled is also considered correct.

Rule 2

Short monosyllables always double their final consonant.

• Shop – shopping
• Let – letting

‘ie’ and ‘ei’

The general rule is ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’.

• Examples are: siege, believe, friend
• But receive, deceive, ceiling etc.

There are several exceptions to this rule.

• Reign, neighbor, heir, seize, leisure, weird

Dis and mis

Never double the ‘s’ of these prefixes. When a second ‘s’ occurs it is the first letter of the next syllable.

Examples are: dismiss (not dissmiss), misplace (not missplace)

dissent (dis-sent), misspell (mis-spell)

‘us’ and ‘ous’

Nouns end in ‘ us’ . Adjectives end in ‘ ous ‘. So we have:

• Census, genius (nouns)
• Jealous, tremendous,