GENERAL RULES FOR SPELLING WORDS.

RULE I.

53. Monosyllables ending with f, l, or s, preceded by a single vowel, double the final consonant; as, staff, mill, pass.

34. Exceptions.—Of, if, as, is, has, was, his, gas, yes, this, us, thus, pus.

RULE II.

55. Words ending with any consonant except f, l, or s, do not double the final letter; as, sit, not, up, put, that, in.

56. Exceptions.-Add, bunn, butt, buzz, ebb, egg, err, inn, odd, purr.

RULE III.

57. Words ending in y preceded by a consonant, change y into i before an additional letter or syllable; as, spy, spies; happy, happier, happiest; carry, carrier, carried; fancy, fanciful.

58. Exception 1.-But y is not changed before ing; as, deny, denying.

59. Exception 2. Words ending in y preceded by a vowel, retain the y unchanged; as boy, boys, boyish, boyhood. But lay, pay, say, make laid, paid, said; and day makes daily.

RULE IV.

60. Monosyllables and words accented on the last syllable, ending with a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, double that consonant before an additional syllable beginning with a vowel; as rob, robber; admit, admittance, admitted.

Exception.-But x and h are never doubled.

61. But when a diphthong or a double vowel precedes, or the accent is not on the last syllable, the consonant is not doubled; as, boil, boiling, boiler; wool, woolen ; fool, foolish; visit, visited.

62. Exceptions. In about fifty words ending in 7 with a vowel before it, and not accented on the last syllable, many writers, contrary to analogy and without necescity, double the improperly before an additional syllable. These are such words as travel, traveller, travelling, travelled.*

63. So also s and p are generally, though improperly, doubled in bias, worship, and kidnap; as biassing, worshipper, kidnapping. Webster, and many writers following him, in these words conform to the general rule.

The words referred to are the following: Apparel, bevel, bowel, cancel, carol, cavil, channel, chisel, counsel, cudgel, dishevel, drivel, duel, embowel, enamel, empanel, equal, gambol, gravel, grovel, handsel, hatchel, imperil, jewel, kennel, label, level, libel, marshal, marvel, model, panel, parcel, pencil, peril, pistol, pommel, quarrel, ravel, revel, rival, rowel, shovel, shrivel, snivel. tassel. trammel, travel, tunnel, unravel.

RULE V.

64. Words ending with l drop one I before the terminations less and ly, to prevent trebling; as, skill, skilless; full, fully; and some writers, before ness and ful; as, fulness, skilful.

65. But words ending in any other double letter, preserve the letter double before less, ly, ness, and ful; as, harmlessly, stiffly, gruff

ness, &c.

RULE VI.

66. Silent e is preserved before the terminations, ment, less, ly, and ful; as, paleness, peaceful, abatement, &c.

67. Exceptions. Duly, truly, awful, and generally, judgment, acknowledgment, lodgment, abridgment, are excepted. Argument, from the Latin argumentum, is not an exception.

RULE VII.

68. Silent e is omitted before terminations beginning with a vowel; as, slave, slavish; cure, curable; sense, sensible; lodge, lodging; love, lovest.

69. Blame, move, reprove, sale, and their compounds. sometimes, though improp erly, retain e before able; as, blameable, &c.

70. But words ending in ge and ce retain e before able, in order to preserve the soft sound of g and c; as, changeable, peaceable, &c. For the same reason we have singeing and swingeing: Dye has dyeing, to distinguish it from dying. So also words ending with c hard, insert k before a syllable beginning with e or i to preserve the hard sound; as, frolic, frolicked, frolicking.

71. The letters ie, at the end of a word, are changed into y before ing, as, die, dying; lie, lying.

RULE VIII.

72. Simple words ending in ll, when joined to other words gener ally drop one l, when they lose the accent; as awful, hopeful, handful, careful, already.

73. But when they are under the accent, the double / should be retained; as, fulfill, willful, recall, foretell. But, until, welcome, always, also, withal, therewithal, wherewithal, have single l.

74. On the subject of this rule, however, usage is far from uniform-fulfil and fulfill; willful and wilful; recal and recall; foretel and foretell, and similar va

rieties are common.

75. Other compounded words are generally spelled in the same manner as the simple words of which they are formed; as, glass-house, mill-wright, thereby. 76. Many words in English admit of two or more different modes of spelling; as, connection, connexion; enquire, inquire; chemistry, chymistry, &c. cases, prevailing usage and analogy must be our guides.

In such

CAPITALS.

77. Formerly every noan began with a capital letter, both in writing and in printing; but at present only the following words begin with capital letters:

1. The first word of every book, chapter, letter, note, or of any other piece of writing.

2. The first word after a period; also after a note of interrogation, or exclamation, when the sentence before, and the one after it, are independent of each other.

But if several interrogative or exclamatory sentences are so connected, that the latter sentences depend on the former, all of them, except the first, may begin with a small letter; as, "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how are her habitations become as desolate! how is she become as a widow !"

3. Proper names, titles of office or honor; as, George Washington, General Lee, Judge Story, Sir Walter Scott, America, the Ohio, Pratt, Woodford, & Co., Pearl Street, New York.

4. The pronoun I, and the interjection O, are written in capitals. 5. The first word of every line in poetry.

6. The appellations of the Deity; as, God, Most High, the Almighty, the Supreme Being, &c.

7. Adjectives derived from the proper names of places; as, Grecian, Roman, English, &c.

8. The first word of a direct quotation, when the quotation would form a complete sentence by itself; as, "Always remember this ancient maxim: Know thyself.'”

When a quotation is not introduced in the direct form, but follows a comma, the *first word must not begin with a capital; as, "Solomon observes, that pride goes before destruction." "

9. Common nouns when personified; as, "Come, gentle Spring." 10. Every substantive and principal word in the titles of books; as, Euclid's Elements of Geometry;" "Goldsmith's Deserted Village."

78. Other words, besides the preceding, may begin with capitals, when they are remarkably emphatical, or the principal subject of the composition.

PART II.

ETYMOLOGY.

79. ETYMOLOGY treats of the different sorts of words, their various modifications, and their derivations.

WORDS.

80. A WORD is an articulate sound used by common consent as the sign of an idea.

81. A few words consist of vocal or vowel sounds only, without articulation; as, I, ah, awe, oh, owe, eye, &c.

82.-1. Words, in respect of their Formation, are either Primitive or Derivative, Simple or Compound.

83. A Primitive word is one that is not derived from any other word in the language; as, boy, just, father.

84. A Derivative word is one that is derived from some other word; ns, boyish, justice, fatherly.

85. A Simple word is one that is not combined with any other word; as, man, house, city.

86. A Compound word is one that is made up of two or more simple words; as, manhood, horseman.

87.-2. Words, in respect of Form, are either Declinable or Indeclinable.

88. A Declinable word is one which undergoes certain changes of form or termination, to express the different relations of gender, nunber, case, person, &c., usually termed in Grammar ACCIDENTS; as, man, men; love, loves, loved.

89. In the changes which they undergo, Nouns and Pronouns are said to be declined, Verbs, to be inflected.

90. An Indeclinable word is one which undergoes no change of form; as, good, some, perhaps.

91.-3. In respect of Signification and Use, words are divided into different classes, called Parts of Speech.

92. The principle according to which words are classified is their use. or the part they perform in the expression of thought. Words which are names of objects are classed as nouns; those which qualify nouns are adjectives; those which attribute an action or state to some subject are verbs. &c. Hence, when the same word is used for different purposes at one time as a name, at another to qualify a noun, and at another to express an action or state-it should, in parsing, be assigned to that class of words, the office of which it performs for the time: thus, "Before honor [noun] is humility." "Honor [verb] thy father and thy mother."

93. PARSING is the art of resolving a sentence into its elements or parts of speech; stating the accidents or grammatical properties of each word, and pointing out its relation to other words with which it is connected.

94. Parsing is distinguished into Etymological and Syntactical. 95. A word is parsed Etymologically by stating the class of words to which it belongs, with its accidents or grammatical properties.

96. A word is parsed Syntactically by stating, in addition, the relation in which it stands to other words, and the rules according to which they are combined, in phrases and sentences.

97. These two, though related, are perfectly distinct, and should not be mixed up in the early part of the student's course, by anticipating at the outset what he can be supposed to know, only at a more advanced stage. Such a course may seem to be more intellectual, but its tendency is only to perplex and darken the subject. Let the student learn one thing at a time, each thing thoroughly in its proper order, and continue to combine things learned, as far as it can be done without anticipating what is future. In this way the process will be simple and easy; every step will be taken in the light. and when completed, the result will be satisfactory. Besides, the student must be able to parse etymologically with great ease and promptness, before he can with any advantage begin the study of syntax. This promptness he will acquire in a very short time, and almost without effort, if the class is properly drilled on the exercises furnished at every step in the following pages.

PARTS OF SPEECH.

98. THE PARTS OF SPEECH in English are nine: viz., Noun, Article, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Interjection, and Conjunction.

99. Of these, the Noun, Pronoun and Verb, are declined; the rest are indeclinable.