AMERICAN SPELLING
253
- Drop the silent e after v or z when preceded by a digraph representing a long vowel or a diphthong: achiev, freez, gauz, sneez.
- Drop the e in final oe when it is pronounced o: fo, ho, ro, to, wo. But retain it in inflections: foes, hoed.
- When one of the letters in ea is silent drop it: bred, brekfast, hed, hart, harth.
- When final ed is pronounced d drop the e: cald, carrid, employd, marrid, robd, sneezd, struggld, wrongd. But not when a wrong pronunciation will be suggested: bribd, cand, fild (for filed), etc.
- When final ed is pronounced t substitute t: addrest, shipt, helpt, indorst. But not when a wrong pronunciation will be suggested: bakt, fact (for faced), etc.
- When ei is pronounced like ie in brief substitute ie: conciet, deciev, wierd.
- When a final ey is pronounced y drop the e: barly, chimny, donky, mony, vally.
- When final gh is pronounced f substitute f and drop the silent letter of the preceding digraph: enuf, laf, ruf, tuf.
- When gh is pronounced g drop the silent h: agast, gastly, gost, goul.
- When gm is final drop the silent g: apothem, diagram, flem.
- When gue is final after a consonant, a short vowel or a digraph representing a long vowel or a diphthong drop the silent ue: tung, catalog, harang, leag, sinagog. But not when a wrong pronunciation would be suggested: rog (for rogue), vag (for vague), etc.
- When a final ise is pronounced ize substitute ize: advertize, advize, franchize, rize, wize.
- When mb is final after a short vowel drop b: bom, crum, dum, lam, lim, thum. But not when a wrong pronunciation would be suggested: com (for comb), tom (for tomb), etc.
- When ou before l is pronounced o drop u: mold, sholder. But not sol (for soul).
- When ough is final spell o, u, ock or up, according to the pronunciation: altho, boro, donut, furlo, tho, thoro, thru, hock, hiccup.
- When our is final and ou is pronounced as a short vowel drop u: color, honor, labor.
- When ph is pronounced f substitute f: alfabet, emfasis, fantom, fonograf, fotograf, sulfur, telefone, telegraf.
- When re is final after any consonant save c substitute er: center, fiber, meter, theater. But not lucer, mediocer.
- When rh is initial and the h is silent drop it: retoric, reumatism, rime, rubarb, rithm.
- When sc is initial and the c is silent drop it: senery, sented, septer, sience, sissors.
- When u is silent before a vowel drop it: bild, condit,[1] garantee, gard, ges, gide, gild.
- When y is between consonants substitute i: analisis, fisic, gipsy, paralize, rime, silvan, tipe.
- ↑ I have never heard the u dropped in conduit. But I quote the Simplified Spelling Board.