Sharp PW-E550 - Page 42

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• present participles dropping a final silent e and adding - ing to the stem, e.g.,
change
→ changing; dance → dancing
Other forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
•verbs that inflect by doubling a consonant, e.g., bat
→ batted, batting
•verbs ending in -
y that inflect by changing - y to - i , e.g., try → tries, tried
•verbs in which past tense and past participle do not follow the regular -
ed
pattern, e.g., feel → past and past participle felt; awake → past awoke; past
participle awoken
• present participles that add -
ing but retain a final e (in order to make clear that
the pronunciation of
g remains soft), e.g., singe → singeing
Nouns
Plurals formed by adding - s (or - es when they end in - s , - x , - z , - sh , or soft - ch ) are
regarded as regular and are not shown, e.g., dog
→ dogs; lunch → lunches
Other plural forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
• nouns ending in -
i or - o , e.g., agouti → agoutis; albino → albinos
• nouns ending in -
a , - um , or - us that are or appear to be Latinate forms, e.g.,
alumna
→ alumnae; spectrum → spectra; alveolus → alveoli
• nouns ending in -
y , e.g., fly → flies; party → parties
• nouns with more than one plural form, e.g., crux
→ cruxes or cruces; money
→ moneys or monies
• nouns with plurals showing a change in the stem, e.g., foot
→ feet; louse →
lice
• nouns with plurals unchanged from the singular form, e.g., sheep
→ sheep;
bonsai
→ bonsai
Adjectives
The following forms for comparative and superlative are regarded as regular and
are not shown in the dictionary:
•words of one syllable adding -
er and - est , e.g., great → greater, greatest
•words of one syllable ending in silent
e , which drop the - e and add - er and - est ,
e.g., brave
→ braver, bravest
•words that form the comparative and superlative by adding “more” and “most”;
e.g., beautiful
→ more beautiful, most beautiful
Other forms are given in the dictionary, notably for:
• adjectives that form the comparative and superlative by doubling a final
consonant, e.g., hot
→ hotter, hottest
•two-syllable adjectives that form the comparative and superlative with -
er and -
est (typically adjectives ending in - y and their negative forms), e.g., happy →
happier, happiest; unhappy → unhappier, unhappiest
Syllabification
In the New Oxford American Dictionary , syllable breaks are shown for main entries
and derivatives. Although all possible breaks are shown, there are some conven-
tions that govern how writers break words at the ends of lines. Guidelines include:
•Avoid a break that will leave one letter and a hyphen at the end of the line or one
letter (or one letter and a punctuation mark such as a period) at the beginning of
a line.
•Avoid breaking a word that is already hyphenated except at that hyphen (e.g.,
self-affirmation ; leather-bound ).
•Never break proper names.
•Avoid breaking abbreviations.