Chapter 9

What’s with These Prefixes and Suffixes?

Question: Which English word has three consecutive double letters?

Answer Choices: Casseette? Tooffee? Tobbaacco? Bookkeeper?

In this chapter, I’ll explain how to add bits and pieces before and after base words so that you can figure out which letters are doubled—and which ones aren’t. (By the way, the English word with three consecutive double letters is bookkeeper. But you figured that out already.)

Speed and Spell

You love it, you just love it—so here’s a little more of it. Circle the ten misspelled words in the following joke. Then complete the list that follows.

A blonde’s car gets a flat tire on the interstate one day. Not a foolharty sterotypical blonde, she carfully eases it over onto the shoulder of the road. She steps out of the car and opens the trunk. She takes out two cardboard men, assemmbles the few parts efficeintly, and stands them at the rear of the vehical facing oncoming traffic. The lifelike cardboard men are in trench coats exposeing their nude bodies to approaching drivers.

Not surprisingly, the traffic snarls and backs up. It isn’t very long before a police car arrives. The officer, clearly enragged, asesses the situation and approaches the blonde of the disabled vehicle, yelling, “What is going on here?”

“My car broke down, officer,” says the woman, calmly.

“Well, what are these obscene cardboard pictures doing here by the road?” asks the officer.

“Well,” replies our heroine without the slightest bit of embarrasment, “those are my emergency flashers.”

Answers

Misspelled Word	Corrected Word
foolharty	foolhardy
sterotypical	stereotypical
carfully	carefully
efficeintly	efficiently
assemmbles	assembles
vehical	vehicle
exposeing	exposing
enragged	enraged
asesses	assesses
embarrasment	embarrassment

Now let’s take a little drive down the highway of broken dreams. It’s littered with the mangled remains of words with prefixes, suffixes, and double letters.

Google is an accidental misspelling of googol. According to Google’s vice president, the Google’s founders, well known for their poor grasp of spelling, registered Google as a trademark and web address before someone pointed out that it was spelled incorrectly.

Adding Prefixes

Words with double letters can be a speller’s downfall. For example, how many times have you tripped on the words recommended, embarrassed, underrated, accommodating, innocuous, and occurring? Even the best spellers get sidetracked by these confounding words. In fact, one of the most commonly misspelled words of all is misspelled! Most of these problems arise from the “prefix,” that pesky but useful letter or group of letters added to the front of a word to change its meaning.

A prefix is a letter or group of letters added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning.

Be still my beating heart—there’s actually an easy way to figure out the correct spelling of many of these words:

Cool Rule

When a prefix is added to a word, the base word does not change. Don’t add or subtract any letters.

Some words with prefixes that result in double letters:

Prefix	Base Word	New Word
im	mature	immature
ir	religious	irreligious
mis	shaped	misshapen
mis	step	misstep
under	rated	underrated

Remember: you don’t drop or add a letter when a prefix is added. Here are some common spelling screwups:

Prefix	Base Word	Word Misspelled Because an Extra Letter Is Added
un	exceptional	uneexceptional
re	commended	reccommended
dis	integration	dissintegration
dis	appearance	dissappearance
dis	illusion	dissillusion

A suffix is a letter or group of letters added to the end of a word to change its meaning, tense, or part of speech.

Adding Suffixes

Now we enter the major leagues—adding suffixes. They’re the same as prefixes—a letter or group of letters—but they’re added to the end of a word rather than to the front. Suffixes do a lot more than prefixes too: they can change a word’s meaning, tense, time, and part of speech. Here’s how to deal with suffixes:

Types of Suffixes

Suffixes come in two flavors: those that begin with a vowel and those that begin with a consonant. Here are some examples:

Consonant Suffixes		Vowel Suffixes
-cess	-ful	-able	-age
-hood	-less	-al	-ance
-ly	-ment	-ant	-ar
-ness	-ry	-ing	-ish
-ty	-ward	-ist	-ism
-wise		-o	-on

Consonant suffixes are kindly souls; vowel suffixes not so much. As a result, spelling issues occur with vowel suffixes. It’s always those pesky vowels, isn’t it? (And don’t come after me if you have a tender place in your breast for vowel suffixes. I’ve always preferred prefixes.) Here’s how suffixes affect spelling:

Adding Suffixes That Start with a Consonant

Adding suffixes that start with a consonant is easy, as you’d expect.

Base Word	Suffix That Starts with a Consonant	Word with Suffix
peace	ful	peaceful
child	hood	childhood
age	less	ageless

When a base word ends in y, the y changes to i when a suffix is added. Here are some examples:

Word	Word with Suffix
body	bodily
happy	happiness

And here are some common exceptions. (Like you thought there wouldn’t be any? Ha!):

ladylike
dryness
babyish
shyly
hurrying
spryness
dryly
miscellaneous

When a base word ends in a silent e, the e is kept before a suffix that starts with a consonant. Here are some examples:

Word	Suffix That Starts with a Consonant	New Word Spelled Correctly
care	ful	careful
excite	ment	excitement
fierce	ly	fiercely
sore	ly	sorely

 

Some exceptions: argument, awfully, ninth, truly, wholly. Notice that they’re all important words, especially when you’re writing very truly yours for the ninth (not nineth) time.

Ah, now to adding suffixes that start with a vowel. Gird your loins, ladies and gentlemen. (That’s lady + ies = ladies and gentle + men = gentlemen.)

Adding Suffixes That Start with a Vowel

Just as you learned with suffixes that start with a consonant, when a base word ends in y, the y changes to i when a suffix is added. Here are some examples.

Word	Word with Suffix
puppy	puppies
vary	various

Double the final consonant of a word that ends with certain letters: b, d, g, m, n, p, r, t. This applies to the common suffixes that start with a vowel: -ed, -ing, -er, -est.

Base Word	Last Letter on the Base Word	New Word
rob	b	robbing, robbed, robber
sad	d	sadder, saddest
big	g	bigger, biggest
swim	m	swimming, swimmer
win	n	winning, winner
pop	p	popping, popped, popper
prefer	r	preferring, preferred
hit	t	hitting, hitter

Here’s another way to look at this situation: the 1-1-1 rule. If you have one syllable, one consonant, and one vowel, double the final consonant before adding a suffix that begins with a vowel. For instance:

In words of more than one syllable, double the final consonant only when the final syllable is stressed.

Word with a Stressed Final Syllable	Word with an Unstressed Final Syllable
begin beginning	open opening
remit remittance	organ organize
defer deferring	offer offering

British English always doubles the final syllable when a suffix is added, whether or not the syllable is stressed. For example: the British spell it travelled; we spell it traveled.

Quick Stretch

Complete this chart by adding the suffixes to each base word:

Word	Suffix	New Word
1. many	fold	_____
2. marry	age	_____
3. fury	ous	_____
4. company	on	_____
5. beauty	ful	_____
6. dry	ness	_____

Answers

Word	Suffix	New Word Spelled Correctly
1. many	fold	manifold
2. marry	age	marriage
3. fury	ous	furious
4. company	on	companion
5. beauty	ful	beautiful
6. dry	ness	dryness

When a base word ends in silent e, the e is dropped before a suffix that begins with a vowel. Here are some examples:

Word	Suffix That Begins with a Vowel	New Word Spelled Correctly
fame	ous	famous
refuse	al	refusal
cure	able	curable
slice	ing	slicing
offense	ive	offensive

Stretch Again

Complete this list by adding the suffixes to each base word:

Word		Suffix	New Word Spelled Correctly
1.	nose	y	_____
2.	pole	al	_____
3.	pure	ity	_____
4.	convince	ing	_____
5.	ice	icle	_____
6.	defense	less	_____
7.	awe	fully	_____
8.	true	ly	_____
9.	nine	ty	_____
10.	disparage	ment	_____

Answers

1.	nose	y	nosy
2.	pole	al	polar
3.	pure	ity	purity
4.	convince	ing	convincing
5.	ice	icle	icicle
6.	defense	less	defenseless
7.	awe	fully	awfully
8.	true	ly	truly
9.	nine	ty	ninety
10.	disparage	ment	disparagement

If the word ends in -ce or -ge and the suffix begins with a vowel, a, o, or u, you have to reconsider keeping the e.

Words That End in -ce	Words That End in -ge	Words That End with Other Letters
peace peaceable	manage manageable	acre acreage
notice noticeable	courage courageous	hoe hoeing
	change changeable	mile mileage

The /sh/ sound before a vowel suffix is spelled ti, si, or ci, as these examples show:

/sh/ Spelled ti	/sh/ Spelled si	/sh/ Spelled ci
part partial	expel expulsion	music musician
vacate vacation		electric electrician
rate ratio		statistics statisticians

 

When a vowel suffix comes after /ee/, it’s usually spelled with the letter i, as in these examples: Indian, ingredient, obvious, zodiac, medium, and material.

Words with Double Vowels

In keeping with my mission to have you group words with shared spelling patterns, I’ve arranged the following words according to their double letter. See how much easier this makes it to study them. Some of these words have prefixes and suffixes; others are compound words. Still others are just plain annoying.

Double e	Double o
sheepskin	bookworm
engineering	zoology
fricassee	school
gazetteer	balloonist
bookkeeper	spoonful

Words with Double Consonants

These words all have double consonants. Which words on this list do you use often? Which ones usually cause you to scratch your head in bafflement?

Try It in Ink

Complete the following crossword puzzle to practice spelling words with double letters. This puzzle uses ten words. Choose from the following twelve words:

mayonnaise
molasses
embarrassment
barrel
weevil
rabbi
chauffeur
cirrhosis
Mississippian
tyrannical
colossal
zucchini

(puzzle on following page)

ACROSS		DOWN
2	huge	1	shame
5	Jewish religious leader	2	driver
8	overbearing	3	oily yellow condiment
9	person who lives in Mississippi	4	disease
		6	long green squash
		7	syrup

Answers

Cut to the Chase

Don’t add or subtract any letters when you add a prefix to a root word. Suffixes, however, march to their own drummer. Be careful spelling words that have suffixes because they can be misleading, just like that man who invited you to his loft to see his etchings.