“Not but there are, who merit other palms;
Hopkins and Stern hold glad the heart with Psalms.”
British Poets, Lond., 1800, Vol. vi, p. 405.

CHAPTER IV.—­OF SPELLING.

Spelling is the art of expressing words by their proper letters.  This important art is to be acquired rather by means of the spelling-book or dictionary, and by observation in reading, than by the study of written rules; because what is proper or improper, depends chiefly upon usage.

The orthography of our language is attended with much uncertainty and perplexity:  many words are variously spelled by the best scholars, and many others are not usually written according to the analogy of similar words.  But to be ignorant of the orthography of such words as are spelled with uniformity, and frequently used, is justly considered disgraceful.

The following rules may prevent some embarrassment, and thus be of service to those who wish to be accurate.

RULES FOR SPELLING.

RULE I.—­FINAL F, L, OR S.

Monosyllables ending in f, l, or s, preceded by a single vowel, double the final consonant; as staff, mill, pass—­muff, knell, gloss—­off, hiss, puss.

EXCEPTIONS.—­The words clef, if, and of, are written with single f; and as, gas, has, was, yes, his, is, this, us, pus, and thus, with single s.  So bul, for the flounder; nul, for no, in law; sol, for sou or sun; and sal, for salt, in chemistry, have but the single l.

OBS.—­Because sal, salis, in Latin, doubles not the l, the chemists write salify, salifiable, salification, saliferous, saline, salinous, saliniform, salifying, &c., with single l, contrary to Rule 3d.  But in gas they ought to double the s; for this is a word of their own inventing.  Neither have they any plea for allowing it to form gases and gaseous with the s still single; for so they make it violate two general rules at once.  If the singular cannot now be written gass, the plural should nevertheless be gasses, and the adjective should be gasseous, according to Rule 3d.

RULE II.—­OTHER FINALS.

Words ending in any other consonant than f, l, or s, do not double the final letter; as, mob, nod, dog, sum, sun, cup, cur, cut, fix, whiz.

EXCEPTIONS.—­We double the consonant in abb, ebb, add, odd, egg, jagg, ragg, inn, err, burr, purr, butt, buzz, fuzz, yarr, and some proper names.  But we have also ab (from) and ad (to) for prefixes; and jag, rag, in, bur, and but, are other words that conform to the rule.

RULE III.—­DOUBLING.