Clear English - Page 23

Strange Spelling and Pronunciation Items - Page 4

Word Endings IOUS, UOUS, EOUS - Spellers Beware
  1. I found 254 words that end in IOUS: Such as conscious, delicious, curious, furious, glorious, hilarious, infectious, odious, pious, serious, various and many others. These are words having an ending sounding like sounding like "e-us" or "shus".
  2. I found 51 with UOUS: Such as ambiguous, continuous, sensuous, tenuous, unctuous and others. These are words having an ending sounding like "you-us".
  3. I found 117 words with EOUS: Such as beauteous, courageous, erroneous, gaseous, gorgeous, hideous, miscellaneous, nauseous. These are words mostly having an ending sounding like "e-us".
Word Endings TION and SION
  1. I found 2191 words ending in TION: Such as abbreviation, addition, calculation, devotion, exception, graduation, insertion, location, medication, notation, partition, question, reception, suggestion, vocation, and others. Generally those words whose roots end in a T or TE will result in TION.
  2. I found 293 words ending in SION: Such as adhesion, cohesion, compassion, convulsion, delusion, intension, torsion and others. Generally those words that end to end with a S or SE will end up with SION.
Word Endings ISE and IZE
  1. I found 694 words ending in IZE: Words such as atomize, capsize, criticize, deodorize, equalize, glamorize, itemize, memorize, pulverize, realize, serialize, tranquilize, utilize and many others.
  2. Far fewer words end in ISE. Some of these words are: advise. advertise, chastise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, enterprise, exercise, franchise, improvise, imprecise, surprise, televise, vocalise, and all the words using wise.
  3. Some words can be spelled with either USE and UZE: One of these words are fuze or fuse.
  4. Also remember in British English many words accept both ISE and IZE while American English accepts on the IZE. A few of this group are; apologize, brutalize, colonize, equalize, finalize.
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