Sharp PW E550 PWE550 Operation Manual - Page 42

• 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 conventions 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. 40