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Recently I've been tutoring a woman who's not a native English speaker. Though she speaks English well, she admits to having great difficulty with English spelling. We've started at the beginning, working on phonics, particularly the vowels.

Though there are some basics (long vowels have the sound of the name of the letters), there are enough exceptions to drive her crazy. We've pounded the related rule that words like "sit," which has one syllable and ends in one consonant preceded by one vowel, will have short vowels. Then if you add a silent "e," the vowel becomes long. Knowing that rule can help with both pronunciation and spelling.

You may also remember the rule that says, "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." This rule works just fine with words like "brain," "road," and "teach," but what about "vein" and "bread"? (These are just a few examples of exceptions.)

Then when I informed my student that there are some short words with the same sound but three spellings and three meanings, she heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. Examples: pair, pear, and pare; and vein, vane, and vain. In these situations, I told her, all you can do is memorize!

Words like "vain" and "vane" illustrate how these two rules clash (i.e., they're each consistent but produce different results). At least you know that, in most cases, one of these two rules will give you the correct spelling.

Neither of these rules, or any others, will help you with other pairs that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings. In such cases you can really embarrass yourself by using the wrong word. I recently read a book by a linguist that made this type of mistake twice (bad editing!).

One was the author's confusing of "discreet" and "discrete." (The latter means "individual.") The other was using "compliment" ("praise") instead of "complement" ("complete").

Moving on to more "sophisticated" mistakes, we come to the habit of confusing the pronunciation of similar words. President Bush committed this sin in a recent speech. The first time he made the error, I thought it was just a slip of the tongue. But the second time, I knew better, even if he didn't. What he did was to say "commiserate" when he meant "commensurate." No excuse for that. Adding insult to injury, he pronounced "commiserate" without a long "a."

Someone called in to a talk show recently asking about the relative simplicity of the English language. His view was that English has become the "universal language" because it is so predictable and straightforward.

Wrong-at least in some ways. Every language has its peculiarities, its pluses and minuses, and English thus offers both good news and bad news to those who want to learn it.

Here is some of the good news:

First, English has what's termed "grammatical gender." This means that people and things that are naturally male and female are also grammatically male and female, and things that have no gender (like shirts and trees), are grammatically neutral.

By contrast, French requires that every noun have a gender, seemingly random, as if drawn from a hat. For example, shirts in France are uniformly feminine; the word "professor" is masculine, even if the professor is a woman.

German adds one more gender-neuter-which is even more irrational. The word for "maiden" in German is one of those thrown into the "neuter" category.

Every time people use the French or German equivalent of "a," "an," and "the," they have to choose different forms, whereas in English, "a," "an," and "the" are used with all nouns.

English is also simpler than many other mainstream languages because it has relatively few word endings. Some languages have different endings to denote subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, etc. And French has six endings just in present-tense verbs. (English has one, the "s" on third-person singular (I see, she sees).

However, English presents a number of formidable hurdles. One key difficulty is the size of the vocabulary. There are often several synonyms for the same idea (such as speedy, swift, rapid, quick).

Another issue is the inconsistency of English spelling. This defect is partly the result of borrowing words from other languages-but keeping the spelling and pronunciation of the original language.

Many people who learn English as a native language complain about the random nature of prepositions. For example, we get in a car but on a plane. We can say we're happy WITH or ABOUT something. You can have an opportunity FOR advancement-and the list goes on. (In French, "a" and "de" are used the majority of the time, so there are fewer possibilities to choose from.)

Verb tenses are also a big headache. Technically, English has only six tenses (present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect), whereas French has about seventeen, but in reality English has many variations. Even natives have some difficulties with tenses, but we won't go any deeper into this subject.

As to complaints about our idioms, save your breath. Every language has them. ("Save your breath" is one of those idioms.)

No matter how I try to restrain myself, I keep coming back to the very important topic of subject-verb agreement. Two recent incidents prodded me into revisiting the issue.

First, a journalist friend who is very conscientious about language asked me about a sentence he'd written that he was uncomfortable with. Here's the part of the sentence that bothered him: "The majority of the crowd was…."

What concerned him was the correctness of the verb choice. The sentence sounded wrong and awkward to him, even though it was correct. The subject, "majority," is singular because it's modified by a phrase that contains a singular word, "crowd." This rule applies to all subjects that refer to percentages and fractions.

Thus it would be correct to say, "The rest of the grass was left unmowed," because "grass" is singular. Conversely, it would be proper to say, "Some of the guests have not arrived yet," because "guests" is plural.

My friend understood the concept, but he chose to reword the sentence. Chicken!

The very next day I spent a few leisure moments reading a nature magazine, but my pleasure was soon interrupted by two subject-verb agreement errors in a single article on harp seals in this very prestigious publication.

Here's the first one: "The rhythmic rise and fall of their heads looks like pistons coupled to an invisible crankshaft." The plural subject is "rise and fall," but the verb is the singular "looks." The shocking thing about this mistake is that, even to me, it sounds correct as written. If you even run into a similar situation, you may want to rewrite the sentence, just as my journalist friend did with his own sentence.

The crowning blow was a sentence that appeared a few pages later in the same article: "The yowling, mewing, gargling, and wailing of harp seal pups fills the air." There is simply no excuse for this mistake. In fact, the incorrectly singular verb, "fills," has four subjects. If this isn't the place for a plural, I don't know what is.

My suggestion is that you read through every letter, proposal, and report to check for subject-verb agreement. You may not catch every one, but you're almost sure to catch some of them. And don't depend on your grammar checker. It doesn't detect mistakes in many long, complex sentences. It's more human than you might have thought!

TIPS FOR APRIL 2004

For the past several months I have been tutoring a native of Germany who speaks English well but wants to improve her spelling. I originally thought this would be a breeze, but I have since been reminded of the often-frustrating inconsistencies between the spelling and pronunciation of English words-inconsistencies that most native speakers take for granted.

Consider the "oo": the most common pronunciation of this combination occurs in words like "moon," "loose," and "groove," but not in "good" or "brooch." In fact, these last two have different pronunciations from each other.

Then there's the "ow" sound, as in "howl" (but not "bowl"), and "bow" (bend down) but not "bow" (tied ribbon). And the "ow" sound in "howl" can be spelled at least one other way, as in "shout" (but not "group"). See what I mean?

These are just the tip of the iceberg in regard to vowels. Now let's move on to the consonants. First there are the silent consonants at the beginnings of words: "know," gnat," "ptarmigan," "pneumatic," etc. Creating problems at the end is the "mb" combination, with the "b" silent, as in "comb," "thumb," "limb," and "lamb." And note that even though "comb" and "tomb" appear to rhyme, they don't.

Another stumbling block is the silent "t" that precedes the "ch" in common English words. But I believe I've made a breakthrough: I've found a pattern (different from a rule) that should aid people struggling to master English spelling.

Here's the deal. If a word contains two vowels together before the "ch," there will be no "t." Examples: "screech," "touch," "beach," "roach." But if there's a single vowel, the "t" should be added: "botch," "ratchet," "catch," "fetch," "hutch," and "snitch." So far I haven't found an exception, though there probably are some. What would English spelling be without exceptions?

Also problematic are the words that are related in meaning but are pronounced differently depending on whether they are used as nouns or verbs. Consider "record," "present," "produce," "refuse," "object," for example. I know you pronounce each of these in two distinct ways, depending on context.

Also dependent on context are words like "wound," past tense of "wind," and "wound," an injury; "dove," a bird, and "dove," past tense of "dive"; "does," a verb form, and "does," plural of "doe." I could go on and on, but this is enough for one month. (But what about "enough"? "Though" doesn't rhyme with it, and "trough" doesn't rhyme with either one of them!)

Where have all the commas gone? Gone to the wrong places, every one. When will they ever learn?

Well, maybe the situation isn't that extreme, but you get the point. If you look closely, you'll see that many needed commas are AWOL, and others appear where they're not welcome.

So why do commas matter, if the ideas are clear? That's just the point. Missing or superfluous commas muddy the waters of clarity and force readers to slow down and/or reread. Clarity, clarity, clarity must be the mantra of business writers.

Let's start with those pesky little critter-commas that have no reason to live. Introductory connectives like and, but, so and yet need to be followed by commas only when an immediately following phrase or clause requires commas.

Note this sentence: "So, what can we expect from the Fed in the next few months?" The comma after so is absolutely unnecessary.

But there's a different situation in this example: "And, if you believe that, I've got some land to show you in West Texas." In this case, the clause "if you believe that" is set off from the rest of the sentence by commas.

Extra commas often appear before the phrase as well. It is generally positioned at the end of a clause, as in the sentence "We'd like to talk further about this issue as well." No comma is needed.

Appositives often have either unneeded or missing commas. Two tools are needed to correctly punctuate them: understanding what appositives are and distinguishing between restrictive and nonrestrictive appositives.

Definition: An appositive is a word or phrase that restates and provides additional information about a word that precedes or sometimes follows it).
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Example: "An author and historian, Jay Winik wrote a powerful book, April 1965, which details the key events occurring at the end of the Civil War" and "George Washington, the first president of the United States, changed his will to free his slaves after having a powerful dream."

In the first sentence, "an author and historian" is an appositive modifying the subject, Jay Winik; and April 1865 is an appositive to book. In the second, "the first president of the United States" is an appositive following the subject, "George Washington."

These appositives are nonrestrictive-or unnecessary. This concept is logical: the less necessary a word or phrase is in a given sentence, the more likely it is to be set off by commas. (You don't, for instance, use commas to separate the verb from the rest of the sentence.)

Some appositives (and some clauses) are restrictive-necessary to identify the word they are in apposition with. In the sentence about George Washington, his name alone identifies him; appositives merely give additional information.

In the sentence "Randy's brother, Russ, is a professional researcher," the absence of commas before and after the appositive, "Russ," means that Randy has only one brother. In other words, it's clear who's being discussed; the name is just extra information.

If the sentence had been written "Her brother Russ is a professional researcher," the sentence indicates that the woman had at least two brothers, so the appositive is needed to identify which one is the researcher. Showing differences like these can be critical in reports and proposals, especially when technical material is directed to a nontechnical audience.

Here's a great example of a crucial difference a comma makes: "Stop the fourth man who has a gun" or "Stop the fourth man, who has a gun."

Suppose you were handed a note with this sentence without the comma. Which man would you stop? Making the right choice could have life-and-death consequences.

In the sentence with the comma, your action is straightforward. You simply count to four, stopping the fourth man. (And by the way, be careful, as he has a gun.) The nonrestrictive element is "who has a gun."

With no comma, the clause "who has a gun" is restrictive (necessary). In this case you count only the people who have guns, stopping the fourth gun-toter.

If all else fails, listen to your voice when deciding whether to add or delete commas. You will naturally pause where commas are needed.

Where have all the commas gone? Perhaps now more of them will gravitate to the places they belong.

I don't know what it is about capital letters, but most people just can't seem to get the rules straight - and in some cases they know the rules but choose to ignore them.

One area that causes confusion is what to do about people's titles. The short answer is that in sentences, titles are capitalized only when they precede names.

Example: Bill Miller, president and CEO of the company, greeted guests at the gathering.
And: At the gathering, President and CEO Bill Miller greeted guests personally.
Also: At the gathering, our president and CEO, Bill Miller, greeted guests personally.

The third sentence is different because, as you see, the name is set off by commas, so it's not part of the main sentence, so the rule about placement and caps doesn't apply.

Someone asked me recently about whether to capitalize the word president when referring to the chief executive of the United States. Technically, the same general rule applies as with other titles, but not every organization follows it. Time magazine, capitalizes it in all cases: e.g., "The President held a press conference in the Rose Garden."

Another issue is whether to capitalize the name of an organization in references after the full name has been written. Here's what I mean:

The Smithsonian Institution is bringing a traveling exhibit to town next month. The institution plans a one-month stay.

However, lots of organizations write press releases, proposals, annual reports, etc., in which they capitalize words like company without the full name. But you'll notice that newspapers do not follow this practice, as it's against the law (the grammar laws)!

Another common rule that everyone has heard about since elementary school, but that evidently many people don't remember, is that the names of the seasons are not capitalized (except in situations where words are always capped, such as at the beginnings of sentences or in titles).

Example: We plan a trip to see the leaves in New England next fall.

To cap off this lesson, let me wish you a capital day!