<p>Communicating in the Horse Racing Industry</p><p>Adding to words</p><p>Rules for adding the endings – ing; er; and ed</p><p>The alphabet is divided into two groups of letters; vowels and consonants. There are only five vowels and twenty-one consonants. the vowels, which are a e i o u the consonants, which are every other letter b c d f g h j k l m n p q r s t v w x y z</p><p>The vowel and consonant pattern in a word can change slightly when adding ing, er, or ed</p><p>Words that end in 1 consonant, 1 vowel and 1 consonant, such as rip, fit, and chop have the final letter repeated before you add the ending; for example rip: ripping ripper ripped fit: fitting fitter fitted chop chopping chopper chopped</p><p>Words that end in a silent “e”, such as trade, vote and rule drop the “e” before adding the ending, for example trade: trading trader traded vote: voting voter voted rule: ruling ruler ruled</p><p>Words that end with two or three consonants (or a double consonant), such as bump hand print scratch butt don’t change. Neither do words that end with two vowels and one consonant, such as meet wait clean soak join or words that end with x or w such as box fix mow screw</p><p>These rules might, at first, seem complicated, but if you take some time to check your spelling against the list, you will soon get used to it.</p><p>Tip: As with most grammar rules, there are some exceptions, such as win – winner - won (not winned).</p><p> 2004 Commonwealth of Australia Page 1 of 2 Produced by School of FEAES, Victoria University www.staff.vu.edu.au/racing Communicating in the Horse Racing Industry</p><p>Try the following exercise. Add the following endings to the words in the left column: ing er and ed</p><p> ing er ed box weld trot cool wrap fix jump wait</p><p>Change the word in brackets (by adding ing, er or ed)to suit the text.</p><p>I invited the (strap)______in charge, the horse (train)______and the (own)______from the Holland Park Stables to the stables safety (meet)______. The (strap)______was (run)______late as he was (attend)______to a horse that had a vet visiting. We (delay)______the (meet)______by half an hour, but when he still hadn’t (turn)______up, we (decide)______to postpone it until the (follow)______day. I (email)______everyone to tell them of the change.</p><p> 2004 Commonwealth of Australia Page 2 of 2 Produced by School of FEAES, Victoria University www.staff.vu.edu.au/racing</p>