The Six Spellings of Long E

The Six Spellings of Long E The Six Spellings of Long E The Six Spellings of Long E By Maeve Maddox Some of you have had the opportunity to attend, but we wanted our members to have a sneak peak at what they have to offer. The above quotation is from a club announcement. The words sneak peak certainly seem as if they ought to match, but the word peak is a misspelling in this context. The word meaning a surreptitious look is spelled peek. A peak is a projecting point. As I pointed out in English Spelling is Not Total Chaos, English has more phonograms (sound symbols) than it needs. This multiplicity of spellings applies especially to the vowel sounds. Long E is the vowel sound represented by the e in me. This long e sound can also be represented by five other phonograms: ee Achilles was wounded in his heel. The double e spelling ee always represents the long e sound: see, kneel, feel, tee (golf term). ea Physician, heal thyself. Long e is the most common sound represented by ea: read, zeal, appeal, deal, meal, real. (The spelling ea can also represent two other vowel sounds.) ei That man is filled with conceit. This ei spelling for long e occurs in words in which the ei follows the letter c: ceiling, conceit, perceive, receipt, receive. (Theres a rule that often helps: i before e except after c) ie Lets plant oats in that field. Long e is spelled ie in several common words: believe, belief, brief, chief, field, niece, priest, siege, achieve, piece. ey Follett wrote The Key to Rebecca. The ey spelling for long e is not common in one-syllable words. Key is the only one I can think of. The phonogram ey to represent long e does appear at the end of two-syllable words like valley, alley, and galley. (The spelling ey more often represents the long a sound, as in they.) Its too bad that we have so many ways to spell the long e sound, but its probably too late to do anything about itother than learn the variants. Even Richard Mulcaster (1531-1611), an early advocate of English spelling reform, had to concede that No set of rules can cover all points; some things must be left to observation and daily practice.* *Baugh, A History of the English Language p. 255) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:85 Synonyms for â€Å"Help†10 Types of TransitionsGlimpse and Glance: Same or Different?