Spelling quirk: one vs. two “l”

Friday, October 21st, 2011 | Language, Quirks

I always do the same spelling mistakes. I cannot spell “interesting” or its German equivalent. In German it’s “interessant” – and I tend to mix up the double “s” – sometimes I write double “r” instead – I guess because I think it’s an aggregation of “inter” and “resse”. Makes no sense at all, but confuses me so hard that even in English – where there is no problem whatsoever with “interesting” – I tend to foobar this word from time to time. (… but I can spell beautiful despite some New Zealand folks I talked to :) )

There is one thing that puzzles me on a regular basis. Let’s call it the “l”-case. I never figured out when to use one or two “l”s. There may be a rule, but how come these words are written as they are:

stateful vs. beautiful vs. awful vs. full
or
until vs till

Why do you describe something that is aware of its state (so full of state) as stateful? Why something that is full of beauty as beautiful??

One more term that does not fit directly is “already”. Hmm, “already” vs … well, not “allready”, but still – already looks like an aggregation of “all” and “ready”. I could try to Google the origin of this – maybe there is even an easy explanation or mnemonic trick. Yet, I guess it could be a tedious thing to look up. Ah, grammar …

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4 Comments to Spelling quirk: one vs. two “l”

Lisa
21. October 2011

I don’t see the logic, either. I think I am full of beauty, hence I should be “beautifull” :)

I have the same problems with other words, where I always second-guess myself and my spelling

Rob
21. October 2011

If you go for the plain 2-word Pattex approach, it would even be “beautyfull” *g* Which is an ugly word! Regarding “-ful”, see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ful

Nick
23. October 2011

Thanks Rob for the link. Regarding “beautyfull” – well, “y” becomes “i” on concatenation is some kind of well known rule, right? So that’s fine with me. The “l”-case doesn’t follow a rule as far as I understand it. Even the -ful link doesn’t explain that. Funny thing: there is a -less link there as well: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-less shouldn’t it be -les ?! ;)

Nick
23. October 2011

I guess this *should* explain it;

An adjective derived by this suffix implies a thorough and certain possession of the quality of that noun, *not a metaphorical fullness* with it by degree or quantity. What is beautiful may be full of beauties, but is first fully beautiful.

Ah, whatever … I am full of time wasting right now (and yet not necessarily time wasteful :mrgreen: ) … gotta go!

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