Inspired by the practice or practise thread I thought I'd add this:

my contributions:


Practice is a noun because ice is a noun

therefore practise is the verb.

Took me a while to get this but once got never forgotten!!!

Also the Doctor's Practice is spelt this way (noun)


So The practice

To practise.

the advise/ advice way is good too.


Spelling Piece is as easy as pie helps withe ie or ei order.

To assume is to make an a s s -(sorry censor would not allow the version without spaces - this is not rude!!!!) of u and me.

magician (this one's been with me since I was a kid) - Magic Ian

Neccessary the "s" sounds are both double.

I always forget whether its across or accross until I see it written down (it's the first one isn't it? )

So which words catch you out and how do you remember them? Any mnemonics etc?

Er, no.. the extra c is not necessary - it only has one c, I think..

The one I always use, along with practice/practise, advice/advise is 'I before E except after C'. A lot of people could do to remember that!

One c, two sses - one collar, two sleeves



Mississippi - for this one you need to work up a good rhythm and stress the 'i's: M i - double s i - double s i - double p i

Oops - having come back to it I can see I was wrong there.
I'm actually a pretty good writer/speller but there are just a few words that catch me out and if i think about them too hard they come out wrong. Why is that I wonder???


Slightly off topic but another very common one is the teach/learn thing i.e. "She learned me that!" instead of "She taught me that!" or "Will you learn (TEACH) me how to....?" It used to be an endless battle with 10 year olds that.

Apart from in the word 'weird'. Rather weird, that, isn't it?!

like pian iss iss imo

...and skein and inveigle and feint and.. any others ? Oh - feign..deign.. heinous..height.heifer..leisure.. etc .

Not that good a rule, then. Perhaps one to forget?

Neigh.. neighbour.. seize.. Anyone fancy a game of scrabble?

either.. neither.. weigh

Rhythm

Rythmn Helps Your Two Hips Move

Curious how many different ways 'ei' can be pronounced!

Not really if you remember the last bit of the rule which is" ... when the sound is that of an E."

I'm sure there are still exceptions though.

Stationery has an 'e' for envelope.

But that doesn't work! What about the word 'believe', for example? I'm sure there are dozens I could come up with without even thinking about it.

Has anyone mentioned the word "separate" yet?

There is a rat in the middle of it.

Another one for rhythm I can still many years later from my school music teacher:

rejoice heartily your teacher has measles

What? believe follows the rule!! I before E (Except after C) when the sound is that of an E.
the ie in believe does not follow a C and makes an ee sound. to you too.

Big Elephants Can't Always Use Small Exits - Because.

I learnt this through teaching and I like this one

Not sure I get this rule.. What about pie, die, fie etc? The sound isn't that of an ee? Or have I misunderstood? Sorry if I'm being a bit dim

That makes two of us....

I teach English pronunciation to foreigners so am looking at things the other way round (ie how do you pronounce a word with a given spelling). I would have to go and check my lesson notes to be absolutely certain of this but basically:
The pronunciation of vowels depends on the letter(s) which come after them.
It also depends on how many syllables there are in the word.
No English* word finishes with an "i" so an "e" is added to the end of words like "pie" but doesn't change the pronunciation of the "i".

*Hi doesn't count because it is an abbreviation and words like taxi have a foreign foreign origin.

Not that this particularly helps with the spelling since you can write "dye" (albeit with a different meaning) and an alternative spelling of hi would be high (not "hye").

My husband was taught a longer version of the usual saying. I can't remember it exactly, but roughly it goes

i before e except after c
or where the sound is an 'a' as in neighbour or weigh.

So that covers some of the above, though not all!



Thank you! I've never been able to remember which one is which





I only learnt 'rhythm helps your two hips move' when my son went to secondary school, and I always use it otherwise I get lost with the hs and try and put an 'n' on the end

I remember "stationery" by analogy with all the other things we buy: confectionery, grocery, haberdashery, etc In each of these cases, there's just a "y" on the end of the person who would sell the goods.

"Stationary" the adjective is like lots of other adjectives e.g. temporary, mercenary, imaginary. Adjectives have the "a" form.

Another pair of homonyms which lots of people mix up are principle (always a noun) and principal (usually an adjective, but confusingly used as a noun when applied to the head teacher!). I remember these because there is an "a" in the adjective form.

That is a good way, Berkshire Mum - tho' it does assume that the dodgy speller knows the difference between an adjective and a noun.

By the way, 'principle' and 'principal' are homophones rather than homonyms - eg soar/sore/saw are homophones because they sound the same. A homonym is a word that is pronounced and spelled the same way but has a different meaning - eg 'present'. 'Please be present when we present the present' !

Teaching English is fraught with these problems.

(By the way, a homograph is a word spelled the same but can be pronounced' differently eg 'row'. 'We had a row about who would row the boat'. The middle 'present' in the sentence above is a homophone, as it's pronounced with a different emphasis. )

Enough already!

also how many ways "-ough" can be pronounced too - as in cough.... bough...... though..... thorough...... through.... thought..... dough.....



Stationery also has an "e" like "envelope" whereas stationary has the "a" that's in the middle of "stand".

True but that's not the part people usually get wrong! My English teacher always said to think of separate keep things APART to avoid writing seperate.

I remember a book I read as a child, it was American, and in it the character remembered how to spell principal because the "school principal is your pal", that's what she'd been told (but she was somewhat dubioius about him actually being her pal )

Relevant always gets me. For some reason I want to make all the vowels e, relevent, even though I know it's wrong I do it often enough that it confuses me as to which is actually correct.

The rule is to help you remember which way to put the i and e when making an ee sound in spelling so pie etc don't follow the rule as the sound is an I not an ee.

NECESSARY

= Never Eat Cheese Eat Salmon Sandwiches And Remain Young

It has got me through some rough times...

Oh! So how does 'seize' fit into that? Or 'heinous'? I'm sure there are others.

The word "difficulty" - (not that it's actually a difficult word!) Mrs D,Mrs I, Mrs F-F-I, Mrs C, Mrs U, Mrs L-T-Y. Got that from Roald Dahl's Matilda when I was five. Even now, I still think the word in that rhythm when spelling it!

Stalactite has a C in it as it Comes down from the Ceiling.
Stalagmite has a G in it as it Grows up from the Ground.

Anyone got any tips on how to remember when a word ends with 'able' and when it ends with 'ible'?

thanks for that! it's one I've always had a complete blank about. I'd read the same somewhere in the past - but could never find where.

And tights hang down!

Thanks for this, Helen! When I took English O-level, grammar was "out" and we did lots of essays, so I've never really learned this sort of stuff properly. I don't suppose I'll remember it, but it's good to be told.


I first came across something similar in one of the Famous Five books (forgotten which one now!). It was something like: Stalactites have to hold on tight to the ceiling, and stalagmites might one day grow tall enough to reach them.

I like to think I am quite good at spelling but surprise always trips me up, I can never remember whether it's suprise or surprise.

Also definite, though I am getting the hang of that more now, always used to spell it definate.

Well in the good old English Language there are always exceptions to the rule

Indeed, if you look in the dictionary then there are such a range of origins in the English Language that it is hardly surprising that there are exceptions to every rule!

Old English, New English, Greek, Latin, French, Germanic etc etc.....

Why does anyone want to spell mississippi ?

I've been a chemist for far too many years and I still can't spell aqueous !


This poor spelling that drives me mad is dependent/dependant
Dependant is a noun and is someone dependent on you !

I never even realised there was a difference

You're just reminded me of something a friend and I used to sing in A-level chemistry...

You say ay-kwee-us and I say ack-wee-us
You say gay-see-us and I say gas-ee-us
Ay-kwee-us, ack-wee-us
Gay-see-us, gas-ee-us
Let's call the whole thing off!

I just didn't want to be the only one with that tune going round my head all day

Dependent/dependant

I always think that dependants are little creatures that run round on the floor ( abit like the kids) and of course so do ANTS

Gosh! Isn't it interesting how we're all different?

If I had been taught to spell with lots of mnemonics to remember how to spell things, I'd never have learnt. I'm not saying I'm always 100% perfect, and I'll go and look something up in the dictionary if in doubt, but I'd much rather just learn how to spell a word rather than have to remember a saying to get there!

And the little word "ghoti" .............

I don't know...it sounds a bit fishy to me, that one...

distinctly so - or maybe not so distinctly ...

Have pity for those of us pour souls living in France.

We have to know all those English pitfall words for our English students (and so we don't feel we've forgotten everything from school) AND then know that, in French:

exercise = exercice
rhythm = rythme
dance = danse
address = adresse

and plenty more !

(And that's just spelling. Then there are words like 'croche' which you'd think was a crotchet but actually is a quaver (because it has a 'croche' - a hook) or 'practique' that sounds like it should mean 'practice' but doesn't).


If they weren't so close I'd be fine but there are some days when I just get a mental block and can spend 5 minutes just blanky not knowing whether 'dance' is the English or French spelling. It's embarrassing (and I can spell that one).

DipHthongs.

Useful for teachers of singing, I would imagine. (And people who don't like easy pants? )