Spelling

Use a spellchecker on your computer for the whole document! Remember to select which English dialect you want it to check in.

Remember also to check words that have two or more ways to spell them as the spell checker may not pick them up because they are spelt correctly but are the wrong word.

Here’s a list of commonly misspelled words and words spelled differently in US or British English, followed by an activity to practise some of the ones with two different spellings.

• advise / advice
• enquiry / inquiry
• weather / whether
• use / used
• where / we’re / were
• precede / proceed
• rite / right / write
• roll / role
• affect / effect
• lead / led
• they’re / their / there
• its / it’s
• cite / site
• dependant / dependent
• pour / poor
• through / threw
• check / cheque
• though / thought
• principal / principle
• who’s / whose
• personnel / personal
• stationary / stationery
• been / being
• choice / choose
• buy / by
• peace / piece
• through / though
• loose / lose

A more extensive list of common errors and their meanings.

Be careful of words with double consonants

• Possession
• questionnaire
• opposite
• millionaire
• disappointment
• parallel
• accommodation
• exaggerate
• commitment
• necessary
• occurrence
• preferred
• writing
• preference
• written

sometimes it depends on which syllable is stressed)

(long or short vowel sound?)

Adding Suffixes

• If a word ends in vowel + ‘y’, just add the suffix.

  employee, annoying, laying

• If a word ends in consonant + ‘y’, change it to ‘i’, except for adding ‘ing’.

  signifiable, copied, necessarily, application, lying

• Take away a final ‘e’ on a word when adding a suffix that begins with a vowel.

  Indispensable, collated, diagnosable, arrival, comparable, believing

• except for a soft final ‘ce’ or ‘ge’.

  noticeable, manageable, traceable, serviceable

• Keep the final ‘e’ if the suffix begins with a consonant.

  lateness, procurement, commencement, wasteful, approximately

• Take away the final ‘e’ if it is preceded by a vowel when adding all suffixes.

  argument, arguing, truism, suing

• Do not double a final consonant if the suffix added begins with a consonant. However if the suffix begins with a vowel, it is only doubled if the original word ends with "consonant-vowel-consonant" and the stress is on that final syllable. Note that this is so that the short vowel sound stays short.

  omit – omitted, commit – committable commitment, plan – planned, fat – fattish, signal - signaller

• The final ‘l’ in American English does not follow this rule though and isn’t doubled.

  traveled, cancelation, swiveling,

Following the above rule these words do not double the final consonant because they end in a double consonant or have two vowels before the final consonant, or the stress isn’t on the last syllable.

bendable, pealed, answering, listener

Also note words that change spelling because of which syllable is stressed.

referred, referring, reference

Word endings that just have to be learnt

–able or -ible

feasible, irresistible, matchable, magnifiable, reputable, legible, flexible

-ous or -ious

repetitious, meticulous, magnanimous, ingenious, superfluous, studious,

-ence or –ance, -ent or -ant

reference, attendance, appearance, interference, remittance,
relevant, diligent, deficient, deviant, independent

-er, -or

actor, teacher, doctor, designer, professor, player

Prefixes

Think about prefixes – make sure you use the right one.

uninterested, disinterested
inflammable, non-flammable

Remember to use all of the prefix even if it means repeating a letter.

misspelling, dissatisfaction, unnoticed, immoral, illegible, withheld, unnecessary

-ie –ei

A general rule is ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’. However this is not always right – only a general rule as can be seen from the following examples.

receipt, sieve, receive, ceiling
hierarchical, thief, friend, believe, niece
leisure, height, weird, weigh, neighbour, either, their

Plurals

There seem to be more and more mistakes made with plurals nowadays. One idea is to just add an apostrophe before the ‘s’ to every noun. THIS DOES NOT WORK!! Mango’s and fruit’s are WRONG!!

The only times an apostrophe can be used is for letters, numbers and words not normally used in the plural.

6’s, f’s, and’s

Most words that end in ‘f’ change to ‘v’ in the plural.

knife – knives, wife – wives, half – halves

However, note that there are exceptions: roof – roofs

Learn words which end in ‘o’ and their plural form tomatoes, potatoes, memos, heroes, dingoes, kangaroos, pianos, volcanoes, mangoes or mangos

Exercises

Quiz One - Which Word (Alternative Text for Accessibility)

For more activities with words that sound the same but have different spelling and meanings, here are another 50+ exercises!

An Australian guide to hyphenated and foreign word usage.

Please see the Student Learning Support iLearn community for more exercises