[Grammar] Abiding or abidding ?

[The French]

Hi,

I have read in this site in the chapter which talk about irregular verbs that the present participle of 'abide' is 'abiding' but I thought that when we had the following pettern: consonnant + vowel + consonant we must doubling the consonant.

Am I wrong?:-(

Best,

 

[bhaisahab]

Hi,

I have read in this site in the chapter which talk about irregular verbs that the present participle of 'abide' is 'abiding' but I thought that when we had the following pettern: consonnant + vowel + consonant we must doubling the consonant.

Am I wrong?:-(

Best,

Yes and no. You are not wrong that rule exists but, like all rules in the English languge, it has exceptions.

 

[The French]

Yes and no. You are not wrong that rule exists but, like all rules in the English languge, it has exceptions.

Good afternoon teacher,

You stuck me. There is a rule but sometime like in French we can fall on an exception. Now, I am sure the way to know well all the English's grammar rules is maybe infinite. I have no choice I must learnt it by heart. Like we say in French why to make it easy when we can make it hard. Hope my own translation has a sense in English.

Thanks again.

 

[mmasny]

Hi,

I have read in this site in the chapter which talk about irregular verbs that the present participle of 'abide' is 'abiding' but I thought that when we had the following pettern: consonnant + vowel + consonant we must doubling the consonant.

Am I wrong?:-(

Best,

The actual rule talks about letters, not speech sounds. We double the last letter in the verb when the letter denotes a consonant. In "abide" the last letter is "e", so we don't do that. As we don't in "rule" - "ruled", "bury" - "buried", "make" - "making". But in such words as "bet", "bid", "sit", "log" we do double the letter: "betting", "bidding", "sitting", "logged". Note that it doesn't apply to all letters denoting consonants: "say" - "saying".
I am not a teacher.

 

[The French]

rs denoting consonants: "say" - "saying".
I am not a teacher.

Hi Mnasny,

It is a little difficult when you are not English to know if we have a consonant sound, but your explanation and the others are enough clear in my mind.

Have a nice day (I hope it's not too cold in your country):-D

 

[RonBee]

Like we say in French: "Why make it easy when we can make it hard?"

There certainly seem to be some who agree with that. ;-) (The original was almost perfect.)

 

[mmasny]

The letter "y" is a bit tricky, because it is sometimes pronounced as a vowel ("tricky") and sometimes as a consonant ("yawn").
Have a nice day too. It's not that cold now, barely freezing. But it was even -20 centigrade this winter.