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What's the method of making the "ing form" of different verbs, in some verbs we double the last letter of that verb e.g: sit becomes sitting, dig becomes digging, and in some verbs we do not need to double the last letter of that verb e.g: go becomes going, read becomes reading. How should we know in which verb we double the last letter?

Arman Ali
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  • @StoneyB It's not quite a duplicate, though that answer does have some useful general guidelines. it doesn't address the specific example in this question, though (read -> reading). – ClickRick Jun 18 '14 at 19:23
  • The only cases where you double the last letter is when the word ends with CVC, and the vowel is short. The tricky thing is that you don't always double the vowel in those cases. So going, because the word ends in a vowel, reading because it's CVVC, – Peter Shor Jun 18 '14 at 19:40
  • @ClickRick Sure it does:"If the syllable before the /-ing/ is pronounced with a 'long' vowel, leave the final consonant single (and delete any final silent /e/)". That describes go and read and yields to going and reading. "If it's pronounced with a 'short' vowel, double the final consonant." That describes sit and dig and yields sitting and digging. – StoneyB on hiatus Jun 18 '14 at 21:06
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    There is an exception to that drop the silent e rule: singeing, bingeing, hingeing, and whingeing, for example. The rule is that if the e is used to make a hard consonant into a soft consonant, then it needs to be kept when -ing is added. So sing, singing; singe, singeing. I suppose that one could make a case that since the e serves this purpose it isn't exactly silent, but nevertheless the rule is worth mentioning. Americans, especially, don't always apply this rule when the soft g pronunciation is obvious, for example "impinging" is pretty common. – BobRodes Jun 18 '14 at 21:38
  • @BobRodes I am wincing at that obvious oversight. – StoneyB on hiatus Jun 18 '14 at 21:42
  • I was going to tone down my rule and went over the 5 mins. Now that you've gone and said something I won't delete it and repost it either. :) I was saying that the e is often left out when the pronunciation is obvious, especially in AmE. For example, impinging. However, it will always be in singeing to distinguish from singing. – BobRodes Jun 18 '14 at 21:47

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