72. Get help in spelling a difficult word by thinking of related words. To think of ridiculous will prevent your writing a for the second i of ridicule; to think of ridicule will prevent your writing rediculous. To think of prepare will prevent your writing preperation; to think of preparation will forestall preparitory. To think of busy will save you from the monstrosity buisness. To think of the prefixes re- (meaning again) and dis- (meaning not), and the verbs commend and appoint, will prevent your writing recommend or disappoint with a double c or s.

[Note.]—The relationship between words is not always a safe guide to spelling. Observe four, forty; nine, ninth; maintain, maintenance; please, pleasant; speak, speech; prevail, prevalent. Do not confuse the following prefixes, which have no logical connection:

ante- (before)anti- (against, opposite)
de- (from, about)dis- (apart, away, not)
per- (through, entirely)pre- (before)

Exercise:

  1. Write the nouns corresponding to the following verbs: prepare, allude, govern, represent, degrade.
  2. Write the adjectives corresponding to the following nouns and the nouns corresponding to the following adjectives: desperation, academy, origin, ridiculous, miraculous, grammatical, arithmetical, busy.
  3. Write the adverbs corresponding to the following adjectives: real, sure, actual, hurried, accidental, incidental, grammatical.
  4. Copy the following pairs of related words or related forms of words: labor, laboratory; debate, debater; base, based; deal, dealt; chose, chosen; mean, meant.
  5. Write each of the following words with a hyphen between the prefix and the body of the word: describe, description, disappoint, disappear, disease, dissatisfy, dissever, permit, perspire, prescription, preconceive, recommend, recollect, reconsider, antedate, antecedent, anticlimax, antitoxin.
[Superficial Resemblances between Words]

73. Guard against misspelling a word because it bears a superficial resemblance, in sound or appearance, to some other word. Most of the words in the following list have no logical connection; the resemblance is one of form only (angel, angle). But a few words are included which are different in spelling in spite of a logical relation (breath, breathe).