How do you spell writing correctly? I keep second-guessing myself

[REbus]

I know this might sound silly, but I've actually had moments where I stared at the word 'writing' and wondered if I was spelling it right. It looks normal, but then you think about it too long and suddenly everything looks weird. Is it w-r-i-t-i-n-g or w-r-i-t-t-i-n-g? I've definitely typed 'writting' by accident more than once!

Here's what I learned that helped me remember forever: 'write' has one 't' because it comes from Old English 'writan.' When you add '-ing,' you keep the single 't' – so 'writing' not 'writting.' The rule is that one-syllable words with a short vowel double the consonant before adding '-ing' (like 'sitting'), but 'write' has a long 'i' sound, so no double 't' .

Now I think of it as 'write' + 'ing' without changing the base word. Simple! Anyone else have words they suddenly doubt even though they've spelled them thousands of times?

 

[ElisaMartins]

You're spot on with the historical linguistics angle. For anyone interested in WHY the rule exists beyond just memorizing it: in English, we double the consonant after a short vowel sound to indicate that the vowel stays short. So "sitting" has a double T because the I is short (like in "sit"). But "writing" has a long I sound (like in "write"), so we don't need the double consonant to preserve the pronunciation.

This is actually one of the more consistent rules in English spelling! The pattern is:

• Short vowel + consonant → double consonant before -ing (hop → hopping)
• Long vowel + consonant → single consonant before -ing (hope → hoping)

The confusion happens because we're so used to seeing double consonants that "writing" looks almost too simple. Same thing happens with "planned" vs "planed"—completely different meanings!

My personal nemesis is "separate." I ALWAYS want to spell it "seperate" even though I know it's wrong. Something about that middle syllable just breaks my brain.