1:1:1 doubling up rule

Do you know why we double up the end consonant? 

Before I explain let's look at  some spelling language we need for this rule: 

Do you know what vowels, consonants, suffixes , syllables are?

vowels: a. e. i. o. u (y is sometimes classed as a vowel)

consonants: b, c, d, f, g, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, w, y, z

suffixes are little words added to the end of a word: vowel suffixes = -ing, -ed, -er, able, -ible; consonant suffixes = -s, -ment, -tion, -sion, -ly

syllable stress In the syllables lesson, we saw that words can be broken down into little spoken chunks and these can be stressed or unstressed: forGET, preFER, PREFerence (This is important to know for the doubling up rule for longer words)

Let's look at those words again:

put - putting, big-bigger, stop-stopped, fat- fatten, run - running, thin - thinner, sit - sitting, get - getting, stop-stopping, hot-hotter, swim - swimming...

Do you know why we double up the last consonant?

Say these words to yourself: fat, get, sit stop, put

1: Notice they all have 1 syllable: fat, get, sit stop, put

1: Notice they all have 1 consonant at the end of the word: fat, get, sit, stop, put

1: Notice they all have 1 vowel next to the consonant: fat, get, swim, stop, sun

With the 1:1:1 rule, we usually double the end consonant when we add the following vowel suffixes (-ing,-ed,-er, -est, -en, -ish, -ery, -y)

put — putting; get — getting; swim — swimming, swimmer; stop — stopped, stopping, stopper; sun — sunned, sunning, sunny > sunnier, sunniest; big — bigger, biggest; fat — fatten, fatty > fattier, fattiest; run – running, thin — thinner, thinnest; sit — sitting, hot — hotter, hottest; shop — shopper, shopped, shopping.

So words of one syllable ending in one vowel next to one end consonant (1:1:1), we double the last letter with a vowel suffix.

We don't double up the final consonant when it's w, x or y

quiz — quizzed, quizzer, quizzing (English words always have -u- after q = qu, so ‘u’ isn’t classed as a vowel.)

1:1:1 doubling up rule for longer words

We also double up some words that are more than one syllable when the last syllable is stressed: forget — forgetting, begin — beginning

prefer ("preFER")  preferring/preferred (but not preference)
begin ("beGIN") beginning, beginner
regret ("reGRET") regrettable, regretting
occur ("ocCUR") occurred, occurring, occurrence
forbid: forbidden
commit: committed
refer: referred (but not reference, referee stress is on the first syllable (REFerence)

Remember there are always exceptions to English spelling rules!!!

Focus can be spelled with either a single or a double s: focused/focussed, focusing/focussing

A lot of spellers don't know this rule but just see what looks right- "we always say that looks strange". But it's always good to know why spelling is the way it is and the rules.