BARRIERS TO PROPER SPELLING #2
ISSUES WITH 'E'

#1 19 Ways to Spell the 'E' Sound in the English Language

By now, you have hopefully read my notes on "The 'I' before "E" rule on the main "Spelling" page. Well, there's more where that came from. One of my professors introduced me to 13 different ways to spell the "E" sound in English. I'm not going to discuss how many ways there are to spell the other vowel sounds, but just the fact that some 20 years ago I was introduced to 13 ways to spell "E," is pretty astonishing. Since then, I have found six more ways to spell the same sound, for a total of 19 ways. Now, if 19 different spellings for a single sound won't hinder your ability to spell correctly in English, then nothing will.
        Note: An asterisk (*) indicates a way of spelling the "E" sound that I discovered on my own.

1. "E" as in
Edict                    Metre                    Be

3.  "I" as in
Iago                    Machine                Jacuzzi

5. "AY" as in
Quay (pronounced "key")

7. "AE" as in
Aeon                    Caesar                    Algae

9. "EI" as in
Either                    Receive

11. "EO" as in
People

*13. "IS" as in
Chablis

*15. "IT" as in
Esprit

17. "OIS" as in
Chamois

*19. "UI" as in
Dunsmuir     Beguine

2. "EE" as in
Meet                    See

4. "Y" as in
Pity

6. "EY" as in
Key

8. "EA" as in
Eat                    Seat                    Tea

10. "IE" as in
Believe

12. "OE" as in
Phoebe

*14. "IZ" as in
Agassiz

*16. "A" as in
Ouija                    Bologna

*18. "UE" as in
Albuquerque    Krueger (a surnamed pronounced as
                                                "KREE gur)

#2 Exceptions to the "Silent 'E' Rule"

I remember trying to convince my grade 5 teacher that the silent "e" rule was bunk. She had an arsenal of examples to demonstrate how you can change "hat" into "hate" and "pin" into "pine" and so forth, and held her resolve as a result. The only example I could think of was "bank," and she even tried to argue with me that the "a" in "bank" was, in fact, a short "a" as in "bath." Despite her years of experience and the plethora of examples at her command, I remained singularly unconvinced, and part of what fueled the fire of my resolution was her attempt to convince me the "bank" uses a short "a" sound. Still, I was a duteous, obedient and somewhat cowardly lad, with no armor or armaments to defend my declaration, so I set my argument aside and bided my time. The time is now to tell you that, while there may be an interesting "silent 'e'" conspiracy among certain words in English, there is by no means a rule to govern the whole.

Even so, for the sake of organization, I have assumed there to be a "silent 'e'" rule and found three distinct ways that the rule is broken in English--three "strategies of patriotism." Below I have organized those "strategies" with lists of each strategy's compatriot English words. If I have found any traitorous terms that conform to the "silent 'e'" doctrine (Conspirators! Collaborators!), I have placed them in shackles (a. k. a. parentheses) beside the faithful words. Beware of double agents, such as "Wind."

No list here may be considered exhaustive.

                            STRATEGY A

These words employ a silent 'e' at the end but have a short internal vowel sound. If they had followed the conspiracy, they would have long vowel sounds.



Bette (pronounced "bet")
Bronze
Caste (Chaste)
Comrade
Dove (Hove)
Elle
Give (Dive)
Gone (Bone)
Have (Pave, Cave)
Live (Hive)
Suave (Pave)
Love (Cove)
Glove (Stove)
Lapse
Axe
Apse (Corpse)
Elapse
Synapse
Valve
Salve
Solve
Resolve
Collapse
Impasse
Impulse
Pulse
Matte
Morale
Rationale
Halve
Apocalypse
Absinthe

                         STRATEGY B

These words have no silent 'e' at the end but have a long internal vowel sound. If they had followed the conspiracy, they would have short vowel sounds.




Bank
Dank
Hank
Lank
Rank
Sank
Stank
Tank
Thank
Yank
Whilst
Bind
Blind
Find
Hind (Stint)
Kind
Mind
Rind
Unwind (Wind)
Wind
Post (Cost) or (Coast)
Most (Frost)
Ghost (Lost)
Host
Pudding (Judd)
Buddhist (Mudd)
Told
Hold
Bold
Cold
Fold
Gold
Mold
Sold
Told
Wold
Old
Wold
Poll (Doll)
Knoll
Roll
Toll
Christ

                       STRATEGY C

These words have an 'e' that one might assume to be silent, but it is, in fact, pronounced, adding a syllable to each word and having no apparent effect on the internal vowel sound.



Epitome
Antigone
Catastrophe
Café
Yosemite
Anemone
Apostrophe
Hyperbole
Persephone
Nike
Mathilde
Synecdoche
Kobe
Machete
Penelope

copyright © 2013 by A. J. Mittendorf
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