sábado, 14 de enero de 2012

How to spell -ible -able

Joanne Rudling published -ible or -able? in her Spellingblog in mid November. She draws our attention to the fact that -ible, -able are common spelling suffixes for adjectives and  they usually sound the same.

And she also gives us some guidelines to help us use them correctly.
  • There are more words ending in -able (about 900) than -ible (less than 200).
  • Knowing the history of -ible, -able can help:
-able words usually come from French. We can make new adjectives: networkable, childproofable.
A general rule is if we take away the suffix (-able) we are usually left with a root word:

understandable = understand + able,  
enjoyable = enjoy + able,
comfortable = comfort + able,
dependable = depend + able

If the root word ends in 'e' then usually we drop the 'e'  value + able = valuable, desire + able = desirable, move + able = movable. 

-ible words come from Latin. There are no new Latin words: terrible, horrible, incredible, sensible, edible, accessible, flexible, legible.

Drop by Joanne Rudling's blog, Spellingblog, to find out all the details about -ible, -able:
  • A table of common words with -ible, -able
  • A podcast to hear the pronunciation of these words.
  • A spelling test with -ible, -able with answers
Many thanks to Joanne for her great blog.