OBSERVATION.—­The words annul, until, distil, extil, and instil, are also properly spelled with one l; for the monosyllables null, till, and still are not really their roots, but rather derivatives, or contractions of later growth.  Webster, however, prefers distill, extill, and instill with ll; and some have been disposed to add the other two.

RULE IX.—­FINAL E.

The final e of a primitive word, when this letter is mute or obscure, is generally omitted before an additional termination beginning with a vowel:  as, remove, removal; rate, ratable; force, forcible; true, truism; rave, raving; sue, suing; eye, eying; idle, idling; centre, centring.

EXCEPTIONS.—­1.  Words ending in ce or ge, retain the e before able or ous, to preserve the soft sounds of c and g:  as, trace, traceable; change, changeable; outrage, outrageous. 2.  So, from shoe, we write shoeing, to preserve the sound of the root; from hoe, hoeing, by apparent analogy; and, from singe, singeing; from swinge, swingeing; from tinge, tingeing; that they may not be confounded with singing, swinging, and tinging. 3.  To compounds and prefixes, as firearms, forearm, anteact, viceagent, the rule does not apply; and final ee remains double, by Rule 6th, as in disagreeable, disagreeing.

RULE X.—­FINAL E.

The final e of a primitive word is generally retained before an additional termination beginning with a consonant:  as, pale, paleness; edge, edgeless; judge, judgeship; lodge, lodgement; change, changeful; infringe, infringement.

EXCEPTIONS.—­1.  When the e is preceded by a vowel, it is sometimes omitted; as in duly, truly, awful, argument; but much more frequently retained; as in dueness, trueness, blueness, bluely, rueful, dueful, shoeless, eyeless. 2.  The word wholly is also an exception to the rule, for nobody writes it wholely. 3.  Some will have judgment, abridgment, and acknowledgment, to be irreclaimable exceptions; but I write them with the e, upon the authority of Lowth, Beattie, Ainsworth, Walker, Cobb, Chalmers, and others:  the French “jugement,” judgement, always retains the e.

RULE XI—­FINAL Y.

The final y of a primitive word, when preceded by a consonant, is generally changed into i before an additional termination:  as, merry, merrier, merriest, merrily, merriment; pity, pitied, pities, pitiest, pitiless, pitiful, pitiable; contrary, contrariness, contrarily.