The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules (29 page)

A small group of words that end in
y
, however, have the long
i
sound:

When the
y
follows a vowel at the end of a word, it is usually taking the place of the letter
i
, and thus forms a diphthong. The
y
is usually silent or sounded very faintly.

When a word begins with a
y
, the letter is always a consonant. The exceptions are a few rare words like the archaic
yclept
and scientific words such as
ytrium oxide.

When the
y
appears within a word, that word is most probably of Greek origin and may have the long
i
sound, the short
i
sound, or a combination:

Spelling rule #2: Another way in which the long
e
sound can be spelled is with
ee
.

Fewer than one hundred commonly used English words end in
ee
. About half of them describe a person or a position:

Spelling rule #3: Another way to obtain the long
e
sound is to use the letter
i
. There are very few such words, and most of them are exotic imports, including many Italian words. The first seven words in this list are of course Italian.

Words containing the double
i
are extremely rare.

Occasionally, some of these
i
or
ii
words will have the long
i
sound:

Spelling rule #4: A very small group of words uses
ea
for the long
e
sound:

Spelling rule #5. Only a few words end in
ie
with the long
e
sound:

Note that in the
ie
group we have a small subgroup of words that have the long
i
sound. They are mostly short, single-syllable words.

Note that the
ie
or
y
is often added to a word to give it a casual or informal sound. Often it is a diminutive.