Spelling is not a sign of Intelligence

While spelling is not a sign of intelligence, poor spelling can make a bad first impression. Some sounds like sh have multiple spellings. In today’s post I’ll review spelling rules for the sh sound.

SH

Here are the rules for using s-h to write the sh sound. Use s-h at the beginning of a word or at the end of a syllable. That’s it. Here are some examples: shadow, sheep, shingle, shop, shutter, trashcan, mesh, fishnet, slosh, gush.  So, what do you do when the sound comes at the beginning of a syllable in the middle of a word?

English is a very creative language with its twenty-six letters. One solution is the common suffix tion, pronounced shun. In this case the letters t-i make the sh sound. Tial is another suffix that does the same thing. Other letter combinations that produce the sh sound are s-i and c-i. Common suffixes include sion, cial, and cious. How do you know which one to use?

Well, there’s a rule for that! Use s-i when the preceding syllable ends in /s/ as in possession, and when the final consonant /s/ is where the word changes like in this example: tense/tension. Use c-i when the base word includes a soft c. For example, when changing society to social, or space to spacious.

Exceptions

As long as we’re talking about suffixes, I might as well mention ship. Friendship, relationship, and courtship all break the no s-h at the beginning of a syllable in the middle of a word rule. The English language is full of exceptions. This is one of them.

We also borrow words from many other languages, which can create confusion. In French, the sh sound is spelled c-h. So, chic is pronounced sheek, Michelle pronounced Mishell, and ganache is pronounced gunosh. Note the c-h-e spelling to create the sh sound at the end of ganache.  

Spelling is not a sign of intelligence, but people will take you more seriously when you apply spelling rules to your written work.