Spelling traps and origins

A trap is a place where the sound of a word does not settle its spelling. Each page states the convention behind one, hedged where English does not cooperate, and says where it stops holding.

• Double letters · Why a consonant doubles, and why it so often does not.
• Unstressed vowels · The vowel the ear cannot hear, and the related word that gives it back.
• Silent letters · Letters a word keeps without sounding, and the ones spellers add.
• Same sound, different letters · C or S, CI or TI: when two spellings sound exactly alike.
• Silent E · The few jobs a final E does, and how to tell a word needs one.
• I before E · The famous rule, which sound it is about, and where it fails.
• -able or -ible · Two endings that sound identical, and the test that usually settles them.
• -ance or -ence · One unstressed vowel, and the -ant or -ent relative that names it.
• -ant or -ent · The same sound twice over, and the relatives that keep the vowel.
• -tion or -sion · Three spellings of 'shun', and the related word that picks one.
• -ary, -ery or -ory · Three endings, one murmur, and the relative that stresses it.
• -cede, -ceed or -sede · An ending English settles completely: four words to learn.

Some spellings are easier to explain by the language a word arrived from than by any rule. These pages list one layer's conventions each, with examples and sources.

• Latin spelling in English · tion, ous, the sc of science, and ae.
• Greek spelling in English · ph, ch, rh, ps and y: Greek letters as Latin wrote them.
• French spelling in English · -que, -ette, -eur and eau, and the older French habits.
• Native English spelling · kn, wr, gh, tch and dge: the oldest layer.

Sixteen famously hard words, each with its trap, are on the hardest words to spell, and the history behind the origin pages is told in full on where English spelling comes from.