SPELLING
Reading edition
LOOK IT UP IF YOU ARE NOT SURE.
BETTER LOOK IT UP ANYWAY.
If two spellings are given in the dictionary, the first cited is preferable.
Follow these spellings:
airplane
ayes and noes
ax
base ball
basket ball
bazar
birdseye
blond (both noun and adjective)
Budapest
can not
Chile (South America)
Chili (Africa)
clue
decollete
dispatch
draft
drouth
Duma
employe
Eskimo
facsimile
Filipino
foot ball
gaily
gaiety
goodby
guarantee (verb)
guaranty (noun)
Hayti
Hindu
Khartum
kidnaped
Korea
Leipzig
Macaulay's History
Mohammed
nearby
plow
Porto Rico
repertory
Shakespeare
Shakespearean
skilful
technic
Tibet
today
Tolstoy
tomorrow
Turgenieff
tying
vilify
vying
whisky
Wilkes-Barre
woolly
world series
Write: Parcel post, not parcels post.
Be sure that proper names are spelled uniformly throughout a story.
Use the form in instead of en in such words as indorse, inclose.
Write it: Trade unions, not trades unions.
Use no diphthongs when they can be avoided. Write: anesthetic, esthetic, medieval, maneuver, subpena, homeopathic.
Follow the American spelling on checks, tires, curb, pajamas, disregarding the British cheques, tyres, kerb, pyjamas.
Make the plural of Knight Templar, Knights Templar.
Don't add s to: afterward, backward, forward, toward.
As a general rule change -re to -er when it is the last syllable, as in theater, caliber, timber.
Beware of effect and affect, and use them carefully.
A long way, not a long ways.
Distinguish between: depository and depositary; between insanitary and unsanitary; between immoral and unmoral; between councilor, consular and counselor; between council and counsel and consul; between capitol and capital; between clamant and claimant; between sear and seer and sere; between emigrant and immigrant; between faker and fakir; between breech and breach; between auger and augur; between hoard and horde; between lessen and lesson; between principle and principal; between prophecy and prophesy; between advice and advise; between maize and maze; between site and sight.
The people of Panama are Panamans, not Panamanians, just as we are Americans, not Americanians.
Two cities in the United States take final gh. They are Pittsburgh, Pa., and Newburgh, N. Y. Also write it Edinburgh.
Drop the unsounded final letters in such words as program, catalog, suffraget, dialog, cigaret, decalog. Similarly, write armor, favor, color, and Savior.
Some words have lost prefix or suffix, and if they are in good use in their curtailed form, they should be written without apostrophes, as, cello and varsity.