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But what makes spelling this word tricky isn’t the consonants, but rather the vowels. The word accommodate also uses a double c… and throws in a double m for good measure. Why exactly does English have so many different rules and variations when it comes to spelling? Learn a thing or two about its messy history here. ⚡️ What makes English a difficult language to spell? This double c comes from the Latin origin of the word, the equivalent of the prefix oc- combined with the verb cāsus, meaning roughly “to have befallen.” Also, you may be tempted to add another s, but there is only one in occasion. Part of what makes spelling this word challenging are the hard c (like a k) sounds, spelled with a double c.
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The word occasion also features the letters cand s, but here they are not making the same ssound. It might help you to know that the word narcissistic ultimately comes from the Greek nárkissos, a plant name associated with narcotics. It can also be hard to remember where to place the double s. Similar to necessary, narcissistic is challenging to spell because of the c and s letters that make the same sound. Do you “c” two s‘s? Ask yourself this to make sure there is first one c and then a double s in necessary. How do you remember where and how many c or s letters you need? Well, take a look at the word.
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This, combined with the use of double consonants that don’t change how the word is pronounced, makes necessary tricky to spell. One of the things that makes English hard to spell is that there are letters that can-but don’t always-make the same sounds, such as cand s. They are some of the trickiest words to spell in English. If you struggle spelling some of these challenging words, just know you are not alone. No wonder English is practically the only language spelling competitions are held in! To further confuse matters, words in English have different spellings in different countries. But the English language uses a mix of spellings and pronunciations from Latin, Greek, French, German, and many others. In most languages, the way words are spelled ( graphemes) consistently relate to the way they sound ( phonemes).
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As any participant in a spelling bee can tell you, correctly spelling words in the English language is not always easy.
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