RULE V.—­FINAL CK.

Monosyllables and English verbs end not with c, but take ck for double c; as, rack, wreck, rock, attack:  but, in general, words derived from the learned languages need not the k, and common use discards it; as, Italic, maniac, music, public.

EXCEPTIONS.—­The words arc, part of a circle; orc, the name of a fish; lac, a gum or resin; and sac, or soc, a privilege, in old English law, are ended with c only. Zinc is, perhaps, better spelled zink; marc, mark; disc, disk; and talc, talck.

RULE VI.—­RETAINING.

Words ending with any double letter, preserve it double before any additional termination, not beginning with the same letter;[115] as in the following derivatives:  wooer, seeing, blissful, oddly, gruffly, equally, shelly, hilly, stiffness, illness, stillness, shrillness, fellness, smallness, drollness, freeness, grassless, passless, carelessness, recklessness, embarrassment, enfeoffment, agreement, agreeable.

EXCEPTIONS.—­1.  Certain irregular derivatives in d or t, from verbs ending in ee, ll, or ss, (as fled from flee, sold from sell, told from tell, dwelt from dwell, spelt from spell, spilt from spill, shalt from shall, wilt from will, blest from bless, past from pass,) are exceptions to the foregoing rule. 2.  If the word pontiff is properly spelled with two Effs, its eight derivatives are also exceptions to this rule; for they are severally spelled with one; as, pontific, pontifical, pontificate, &c. 3.  The words skillful, skillfully, willful, willfully, chillness, tallness, dullness, and fullness, have generally been allowed to drop the second l, though all of them might well be made to conform to the general rule, agreeably to the orthography of Webster.

RULE VII.—­RETAINING.

Words ending with any double letter, preserve it double in all derivatives formed from them by means of prefixes:  as, see, foresee; feoff, enfeoff; pass, repass; press, depress; miss, amiss; call, recall; stall, forestall; thrall, inthrall; spell, misspell; tell, foretell; sell, undersell; add, superadd; snuff, besnuff; swell, overswell.

OBSERVATION.—­The words enroll, unroll, miscall, befall, befell, bethrall, reinstall, disinthrall, fulfill, and twibill, are very commonly written with one l, and made exceptions to this rule; but those authors are in the right who retain the double letter.

RULE VIII.—­FINAL LL.

Final ll is peculiar to monosyllables and their compounds, with the few derivatives formed from such roots by prefixes; consequently, all other words that end in l, must be terminated with a single l:  as, cabal, logical, appal, excel, rebel, refel, dispel, extol, control, mogul, jackal, rascal, damsel, handsel, tinsel, tendril, tranquil, gambol, consul.