The plurals of nouns ending in a digraph vowel or diphthong take simply the letter s, as boy, boys; but the plurals of nouns ending in y only take the letters -ies, as pity, pities. The same rule applies to verbs with like endings.

RULE XII.

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE SOUND SH.

§ 1. Sh is a whispered continuous consonant occurring in almost all languages, and, singularly enough, having no single letter to represent it in any one. Take our word shoe, for

instance, which is composed of only two sounds; in English, the phonic representation is sh oo; in French, ch ou; in German, sch uh; in Italian, sci u; and in Portuguese, ch u; in every case a digraph being used for the simple sound sh.

§2 This sound is almost always represented by sh; as in shall, wish; the principal exceptions being after the sounds 1 or n, when ch is used. It is also the second element of the diphthongal consonant ch in church, which is pronounced. tsh-ur-tsh. This sound is represented by ti, ci, or ce, in words ending in -ous, as ambitious, gracious, farinaceous; also in words ending in -tial, as partial, initial, essential.

§ 3. Orthoepists differ about the pronunciation of ch in such words as belch, filch, bench, inch; some making them belsh, filsh, bensh, insh; and others, beltsh, filtsh, bentsh, intsh. This, however, causes no difficulty in the spelling, as ch must be used after 1 or n, in whichever way the words are pronounced.

§ 4. Plurals of nouns cannot be formed by the addition of s after this sound, but must take the syllable -es, as wish-es, inch-es, arch-es.

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE SOUND ZH.

This is the vocal power of the preceding whispered consonant sh, and as the latter is always represented by a digraph,

1

this, on the other hand, is always represented by the single letter s or z, but generally by s. It is not a common sound in English, though very frequent in French. It is most frequent in English under the disguise of j or g soft, of which compound consonant it forms the second element, g or j being equal to dzh. (See rule 25.)

This sound never commences or ends a purely English word; as a simple sound it is most frequently heard in the the termination -sion, when pronounced zhun.

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE SOUND F.

This is a simple whispered continuous consonant sound formed at the lips, and exists in all the European languages. It is represented by f and ph, but by the former (f) about fifteen times oftener than the latter (ph), which is never used but in words derived from the Greek. It is one of the three consonant letters f, 1 and s, that are doubled in monosyllables, as buff, cuff, lull, bull, moss, pass.

F is doubled when immediately succeeding a short accented vowel and when final in a word; or when it is followed by another vowel or by 1 or r; as cliff, chaff, toffy, gaffer, baffle, scuffle, saffron. No doubling of the letter takes place if another consonant intervene, as self, gulf; or if it follow a long vowel or diphthong, as safe, grief, life, loaf.

It is also doubled in two or three syllable words when immediately succeeding an unaccented vowel, as mastiff.

In words derived from the Greek, the English, French and Germans use ph, as philosophy, physic; but the Italians and Spaniards have discarded the digraph, and write f, as filosofia, fisica.

The form f is most common in one, two, or three syllable words, but ph is more frequent in words of four or more syllables.

THE EEPRESENTATION OF THE SOUND V.

This is the vocal power of the preceding whispered con

sonant f. It is never doubled under any circumstances, (navvy excepted), and therefore, gives no indication of the quality of the preceding vowel, whether long or short, accented or unaccented. A silent e is always added when the sound ends a word, as give, dove, rōve, wāve. There is no difficulty in representing this sound in spelling, as v is the only letter that can do it.

From four to five hundred adjectives end with the termination -ive, pronounced short, as Ĭv. Ex expensive, impulsive, inductive, destructive.

RULE XVI.

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE WHISPERED TH.

This sound and the vocal th in them, are unknown in the French, German and Italian languages, but are common in English and Spanish. The whispered th is always represented by th, and consequently causes no difficulty in spelling.