Verb Forms and Verb Tenses (#6): Spelling -ing Forms, by Dennis Oliver

 Verb Forms and Verb Tenses (#6):

Spelling - ing FormsEnglish verbs have five basic forms: the base form, the - S form,the - ing form, the past form, and the past participle form.

There are several ways to spell -ing forms:

 1. If a verb ends in a stressed vowel + one or moreconsonants + e or ue, "drop" the e and add - ing.

Examples:

abáte / abating; ache / aching; bathe / bathing;beliéve / believing; bite / biting; care / caring;deléte / deleting; dive / diving; ensláve / enslaving;excíte / exciting; file / filing; gripe / griping;hope / hoping; joke / joking; live / living;make / making; paráde / parading; paste / pasting;raise / raising; revíle / reviling; save / saving;smoothe / smoothing; taste / tasting;glue / gluing; rue / ruing; sue / suing

2. If a verb ends in - ie, change the - ie to - yandadd - ing.

Examples:

die / dying; lie / lying; tie / tying; vie / vying

3. If a verb ends in y, add - ing. It doesn't matter ifthere is a vowel or a consonant before y.

Examples:

pry / pryingspy / spying

pray / prayingspay / spaying

4. If a verb ends in a vowel + one consonant,double the consonant and add - ing.

Examples:

beg / begging; chat / chatting; dig / digging;fit / fitting; grin / grinning; grip / gripping;hop / hopping; mix / mixing; nip / nipping;pin / pinning; quit / quitting; rip / ripping;sit / sitting; tip / tipping; win / winning

5. If a verb ends in a stressed vowel + r,double the r and add - ing, but if a verb endsin an unstressed vowel + r, do not double,the r: just add - ing:

confér / conferringdefér / deferringrefér / referring

ánswer / answeringóffer / offeringsúffer / suffering

6. If a verb ends in a vowel, add - ing.

Examples:

do / doing; echo / echoing; go / going; ski / skiing

7. Add - ing to all other verbs.___________________________________________

Special Notes:

 1. Note that sometimes two consonant letters areneeded to spell a single consonant sound:

achebathebreathecacheclothe

loathesmoothewreathewrithe

(In ache, the letters ch are pronounced k and incache, they're pronounced sh. The letters th arepronounced like th in them.)

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Notice also that sometimes two vowel letters areneeded to spell a single vowel sound:

achievebelieveloathe

raisereceivesoothe

peeve smoothe

 2. The two words die and dye have the same sound (dái)but different spellings: die ('become dead') anddye ('to color'). For die, the -ing form has i changingto y before -ing is added. For dye, the -ing is addedafter the e (which is not the normal pattern):

die ---> dying dye ---> dyeing

 3. The spellings vowel + consonants + e andvowel + consonants show two different vowelsounds. Notice that when - ing is added, the firstspelling drops the e and adds -ing, but the secondspelling doubles the consonant and adds -ing.

Examples:

file / filinghope / hopingmope / mopingtape / taping

fill / fillinghop / hoppingmop / moppingtap / tapping