This is a “short” or “checked” vowel sound, so is always followed by a consonant.
10 responses to “i”
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I can’t think of any words with the sound /I/ as in “pin” that have it spelt “ui”, are you talking about build and built? I classify them as “bu” because of buy and buoy, just because that way I have one category for three odd words instead of three new categories. I can’t think what other words have this sound spelt with the letter “u” apart from busy and its derivatives, but if you know some, please tell me about them. All the best, Alison
Perhaps ‘guilt’?
Hi Ross, I’ve filed ‘guilt’ with ‘guitar’ and ‘guess’ and ‘disguise’ because I don’t usually put words with harder spellings on lists which demonstrate easier spellings. The letter u in these words is part of a ‘gu’ spelling, and is there to separate the ‘g’ and the front vowel, because when you have ge, gi or gy, the ‘g’ is usually pronounced /j/. See https://www.spelfabet.com.au/spelling-lists/sorted-by-sound/g/gu-as-in-guess. Hope that makes sense. Alison
Biscuit?
I think of the ui in biscuit and circuit as an unstressed version of the ui in suit and fruit, see http://www.spelfabet.com.au/spelling-lists/sorted-by-sound/unstressed-vowel/ui-as-in-biscuit. I’m not sure what to do with the letter ‘u’ otherwise.
I looked down this list think that biscuit ought to be somewhere here. By the time I had said it ten times to myself, I realised I was hearing the neutral (lazy?) schwa sound. You’re right, biscuit and circuit have the unstressed vowel for the second syllable.
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Thank you very much for all the work you have done in compiling these comprehensive lists. As someone who struggled with spelling as a child, and now trying to help my children with their spelling, they have been a fabulous Australian focused resource.
I’m curious about the ‘a’ in words like average, baggage, bandage, beverage, cabbage, cottage, language, message, orange etc. I’m wondering why it’s ‘a_e’ for ɪ rather than ‘a’ for ɪ and then ‘ge’ for ‘dʒ’. I had thought that the bossy e rule only applied to long vowels.
Hi Emily, thanks for the nice feedback, much appreciated. The ‘-age’ pattern is probably best first taught as a suffix rather than a ‘bossy e’ pattern, we have pass-passage, bag-baggage, lug-luggage etc, see https://www.etymonline.com/word/-age#etymonline_v_8027 for a list, and then there are words with the same spelling and pronunciation at the end that aren’t from this origin like ‘cabbage’ but we say them the same way. Just treat it as a chunk with an unusual pronunciation in ordinary speech, but it’s a good idea to say ‘age’ when writing it as that helps with retention of the spelling, and probably that’s how they said it in the olden days. Hope that makes sense!