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We’re going to talk about suffixes again today, because they’re an important and often-confusing part of learning how to spell. Many words in English are made up of parts of other words, and one of the ways words are “built” is by taking a base word and adding prefixes and suffixes to it. When you build on a word like this, you sometimes – okay, you often – have to change the spelling of the base word. Learning how and when and why these changes are made will help you remember the correct spelling of these words. Like nearly every other English spelling rule, there are exceptions, but in today’s category, the words generally follow a simple rule. Today’s spelling rule answers this question: “When do I use -ANCE and when do I use -ENCE? And what about -ENSE?”

Like other suffixes, these letter groups change a base word into a new form of that word. In general, the meaning of the new word is “the act of [base word]” when you’re changing a verb into a noun, or “the quality of [base word]” when you’re changing an adjective into a noun. Here’s an illustration of how this works:

the verb signify (“to mean”) becomes significance (“meaning”)
the adjective brilliant (“shining”) becomes brilliance (“shininess”)
the adjective diligent (“acting faithfully”) becomes diligence (“faithfulness”)

As you can see by the examples above, a general rule is that if the base word ends in -ENT then the suffix is usually -ENCE, and when the base word ends in -ANT the suffix is usually -ANCE. However, it’s usually easier to just practice the words as you learn them, because many words that have these letters at the end came into the English language long ago, and their base words are not easy to link to modern English words. When you’re learning how to spell a new word, check and see if you can turn it into a noun by adding one of these suffixes, and learn the two spellings together. Start with the lists below:

Words Ending With -ANCE
grievance
abundance
maintenance
importance
brilliance
significance
tolerance
observance
clearance
nuisance

Words Ending With -ENCE
absence
violence
sentence
experience
equivalence
confidence
audience
providence
persistence

Don’t worry, we didn’t forget about the -ENSE word list! There are only a few common words that end in this suffix, so they’re easy to memorize: defense, expense, immense, suspense, offense, pretense. (Note: We’re using American English spellings in these lists.) Once you have these words memorized, it will all make sense!

There are some rules of spelling that you can learn to help you avoid mistakes, and sometimes you just need to memorize words that break those rules. Learning how to correctly form and spell suffixes will help you get past many of those potential mistakes. When you look at lists of the top ten hard to spell words, you’ll find that the spelling mistakes often happen because a suffix is involved. If your question right now is “What is a suffix?” then keep reading, and we’ll explain.

“Suffix” is a term used in grammar and linguistics and is defined as a cluster of letters put at the end of a word for a specific purpose, one that changes the function or meaning of the word in some way. For example, the suffix -ed is a frequent ending for a verb when it’s put in the past tense (trimmed, looked, believed). Another common suffix is -able, which can turn a noun or a verb into an adjective, like when believe becomes believable. When you add a suffix to a word, the spelling of that word often changes. As you can see in the previous sentence, when you add it to the word believe you have to drop the final E in order to spell believable correctly.

The suffix -al is a useful one, but you’ll need to keep the spelling rules in mind when you use it. Here are some examples:

You can change a noun to an adjective with this suffix. In general, the spelling of the base word won’t change if it ends with a consonant. If the base word ends in a vowel (usually an E) then you’ll have to drop the vowel before adding the suffix, and if it ends in a Y then change the Y to an I.

comic / comical
person / personal
judgment / judgmental
department / departmental
industry / industrial
procedure / procedural

You can also change a verb to a noun with the suffix -al. To spell words correctly, be sure to drop the final vowel, double a single T or R at the end of the base word, or change a final Y to an I.

arrive / arrival
commit / committal
approve / approval
deny / denial
acquit / acquittal
refer / referral

Sometimes the -al suffix is used with Greek or Latin words that have been added to English, and in this case the spelling rules are different. In this category of words, you need to learn and memorize the changes in spelling.

cranium / cranial
femur / femoral

There are other words that require more than just the -al suffix to change in meaning, like the noun whimsy which becomes the adjective whimsical. It does have the -al suffix, but you’ll need to be careful when working backwards in finding the definition for a word like this if you don’t know it already. You can’t assume that the noun form of whimsical is whimsic!

Learn all you can about suffixes, and you’ll find that your spelling knowledge will be sufficient to get you through the day.

In the last post we talked about vowel combinations which, though sometimes hard to spell, are generally easy to pronounce. When you put more than two consonants together, however, you might find both pronunciation and spelling difficult. Just look at this list of words that each have five consonants in a row! How in the world do you pronounce TCHPH or RTHPL or RTTHR? What possible explanation is there for combinations like NDSCR and GHTST and TCHST? And the consonant cluster RKSCR has the potential to really screw up your day.

catchphrase
birthplace
heartthrob
windscreen
nightstand
matchstick
corkscrew

Fortunately, most English words with these long series of consonants are actually compound words, and can be broken down into their simpler and easier to spell components. In other words, don’t try to remember the TCHST part of the word matchstick – just think about the words match (TCH is a common letter grouping) and stick (the letter combination ST appears in many English words). Then put the two words back together, and you’ll have the complete word spelled correctly.

Three-letter consonant clusters are frequently found at the beginning or end of a word, less often in the middle (think of the words STRike and SPRing, or niGHT and wiTCH). Four-letter consonant clusters are generally at the end of words, like streNGTH or eiGHTH. Adding suffixes sometimes adds additional consonants, as when the word rouGH becomes rouGHNess.

In general, English words are a fairly balanced mixture of vowels and consonants. There are other languages where the scales are sometimes tipped farther in one direction or the other, however, and that probably leads to spelling problems for speakers of those languages. Students in Slovenian schools learn about the important role the cmrlj (bumble bee) plays in pollination, while French children learn about their aïeux (ancestors). Once you start recognizing patterns of letters, all of these words will become easier to spell.

The old and well-known spelling rule “I before E except after C, or when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh” is well known for a reason – it works as a mnemonic trick to remember which vowel comes first when you’ve got them in combination in one word. At least it works most of the time – the other times, you’ll just have to remember the correct spelling for the word! We’ve listed 15 commonly misspelled words below, all of which have the EI or IE vowel pattern, along with some tips to remember the right way to spell those words.

alien
The EE-EH sounds in the middle of the word might make you think that the E comes first, but here’s a trick to remember to put the I in the first position instead: say to yourself that “it’s very strange (alien) to have the I sound like the E in this word.”

niece
We’re usually most comfortable with our family members, so it’s fine to use the more familiar IE order in this word.

friend
Friends are familiar too, so keep using the IE pattern!

fiery
It’s easy to remember how to spell this word, because when you pronounce it the I sound in the first syllable tells you to put the I before the E.

sieve
IH is another pronunciation of the letter I, and the I comes first in this word, too.

mischief
Don’t let this word trick you in to a misspelling! Let the I in the first syllable of this word remind you to put the I ahead of the E …

interview
… and do the same with this word which starts with the letter I.

piety
Like the word “fiery,” this word’s pronunciation guides you to the correct spelling.

freight
Here’s an example of the “except when sounding like A” part of the old rule …

sleigh
… and here’s another.

forfeit
This word doesn’t follow the rule at all, and pronunciation won’t help you much, so you’ll just have to memorize the spelling of this word that uses the EI pattern.

seizure
Pronunciation to the rescue! Say SEE-zhur and you’ll always remember to put the E first.

height
Wait, ignore pronunciation! The I sound in this word might confuse you, because the E comes first here also.

glacier
Here’s another word that breaks both halves of the rule. Freeze the CIE spelling pattern in your brain instead.

efficient
Another CIE pattern might make you think that learning spelling rules is one of the more inefficient ways to practice spelling, but that’s not true – you’ll find that once you start noticing and practicing the patterns, you’ll quickly make progress in your English spelling practice.