RULE I.
Words ending in silent e after u or a consonant generally drop the e on taking an additional termination beginning with a vowel; as, sale, salable; plague, plaguy; sue, suing; eye, eying.
Exception I.—Words ending in ce and ge retain e before able and ous; as, service, serviceable; trace, traceable; courage, courageous; advantage, advantageous.
Exception II.—Compounds and prefixes retain e; as, firearms, foreordain, pole-axe, vice-admiral, fire-engine.
Remark.—From singe, springe, swinge, tinge, we write singeing, springeing, swingeing, tingeing, to distinguish from singing, springing, swinging, and tinging. Dyeing, from dye, retains e, to distinguish it from dying, the present participle of die. Mile retains e in mileage. Derivatives from proper names of persons retain e; as, daguerreotype, morseograph.
RULE II.
Words ending in silent e generally retain the e on taking an additional termination beginning with a consonant; as, bereave, bereavement; issue, issueless.
Remark.—Awful, awfully, awfulness, argument, argumentation, argumentative, woful, wofully, wofulness, duly, truly, and wholly, are undisputed exceptions; and abridgment, acknowledgment, judgment, misjudgment, prejudgment, lodgment, wobegone, and rhymster, are disputed exceptions. Some write abridgement, acknowledgement, judgement, misjudgement, prejudgement, lodgement, woebegone, and rhymester.