Language tip of the week: happy
Posted by Liz Potter on April 05, 2012
In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult.
This week’s language tip helps with the spelling of nouns whose related adjective ends in ‘y’.
Although the adjective happy ends in the letter ‘y’, the related noun happiness is spelled with an ‘i’ (not a ‘y’):✗ Health, love, andhappynessare what everyone looks for in their life.✓ Health, love, and happiness are what everyone looks for in their life.For most other adjectives ending in ‘y’, the same rule applies:
|
adjective |
related noun |
|
empty |
emptiness |
|
lazy |
laziness |
|
lonely |
loneliness |
|
tidy |
tidiness |
|
ugly |
ugliness |
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