English, as we all know, is a funny language. There is no hard-and-fast rule which can be applied to any word; there are many exceptions to  spelling rules, thus making it a bit difficult to improve on our English spellings. The present-day messaging through cell-phones has further complicated the issue. It is not uncommon to hear comments such as “Improve your spellings”, “Check spelling” etc.- be them from teachers or parents. So, here is a mini-guide to improve on your spelling and check word-confusion.

Spelling errors

The most common errors are made in words like ‘friend’, ‘thief’, ‘chief’, ‘piece’ etc. To avoid the confusion between ‘ie’ and ‘ei’, first ask yourself ‘Who is the friend?’ and answer yourself as ‘I’. Once you do this, you will get the correct spelling as friend (e after i).

Words like ‘deceive’ and ‘receive’ have the letters ‘c’, ‘e’ and ‘i’ in the same sequence as they appear in the alphabet. Likewise, ‘night’, 'might', 'sight' all have ‘ght’ in alphabetical order

‘Accommodation’ has double ‘c’ and double ‘ m’ signifying vacancy. ‘Occasion’ has double ‘c’ indicating that it is time to celebrate. Words like ‘immediate’, ‘commit’ have double ‘m’ signifying urgency. On the other hand, the word tomorrow has only a single ‘m’ as there is no urgency; the double ‘r’(2r’s) can be taken to signify 2 days in a row.

‘Opportunity’ has double ‘p’ and double ‘o’ signifying that it has more options. The word ‘difficult’ has double ‘f’ indicating that it is full of problems.

All words starting with ‘q’ have a ‘u’ following it as in queue, quiet, quite, question etc.

Confusion between words

‘Here’ and ‘hear’:  We all know that we hear with our ears. This should clear the confusion between the two words as ‘hear’ is just adding ‘h’ before the ‘ear’. The other word ‘here’ refers to a place. The confusion between ‘there’ and ‘their’ or ‘where’ and ‘were’ can be similarly eliminated by remembering that ‘there’ or ‘where’ has ‘here’ in it, all of which refer to a place.

‘Loose’ and ‘lose’: This can be mentioned as one of the most common mistakes committed in English.  The word ‘Lose’ just as its meaning, has lost an ‘o’ and so has only  one ‘o’. Loose, on the other hand has an extra ‘o’ indicating that it has more space.

‘Principal’ and ‘principle’: 'Principal' refers to a pal or a person and hence ends with 'al'. The word 'Principle' , on the other hand, means rule; both of these words end in 'e'.

‘Dose’ and ‘doze’: Doze is synonymous with sleep as the sound used to represent sleep is ''zzz''.

‘Heel’ and ‘heal’: 'Heal' is being alright and therefore ends in 'al'.

‘Quiet’ and ‘Quite’: These words can be differentiated by remembering the sentence “Quiet people do not quit” This means that quiet has a letter between ‘i’ and t’.

‘Stationary’ and ‘Stationery’: ‘Stationary’ means ‘always there’ and so contains an ‘a’. 'Stationery' is the shop from where you buy everything you need for school.

‘Affect’ and ‘effect’: Though both words are highly confusing, 'affect' is to alter, used as verb, while 'effect' is generally used as noun.

‘Piece’ and ‘peace’: 'Piece' has a 'pie' in it, hence is used to mean a part, thereby clearly differentiating it from ‘peace’.

There are a quite a few ways by which you can remember the spelling of a word. One is through mnemonics (sort of phrases/acronyms to aid in learning), other is through visual impact ( you can write the correct spelling and paste in at some place where you see daily) and still another is by breaking the work into syllables. Yet an additional interesting way is, of course, via spelling games.

A quick glimpse of general spelling rules can be found at the following site:

http://www.dyslexia.org/spelling_rules.shtml