Prefixes and Suffixes
Today’s topic is prefixes and suffixes, those little things you add to the front or back of words.
Today’s topic is prefixes and suffixes, those little things you add to the front or back of words. They’re like little word-creation factories that let you change the meaning of stem words. You can, for example, go from happy to unhappy by adding the prefix un– to happy. You might do this when you add the suffix –ectomy to the word spleen to get splenectomy. Ooh, that sounds painful, a word you create by adding the suffix –ful to pain. On the other hand, we hope that our discussion of spelling and punctuation when it comes to prefixes and suffixes will be pain-free.
What Are Affixes?
Prefixes and suffixes are two examples of affixes, grammatical elements that are “added to a base or stem to form a fresh stem or a word.” (1) It might seem to make more sense for them to be called prefixes and postfixes, since pre– means “before” and post– means “after,” but it turns out that the suf part of “suffix” comes from the past participle of a Latin word that means “to attach on top of.” (2)
You use prefixes and suffixes a lot more than you might realize. You add negative prefixes to adjectives and nouns all the time, for example, and you use superlative suffixes like –est daily. Negative prefixes you’re bound to use include un-, anti-, a-, and non-, and they give us words like unflattering, anti–war, amoral, and non–dairy. Well-used suffixes include the –s in plural nouns; the –ed that makes verbs past tense; and end-of-word additions such as –ness, –like, and –hood to make words such as happiness, childlike, and parenthood. In fact, it might be downright impossible to write a sentence longer than a few words without using a prefix or suffix—or both in one word, as in unhappiness.
Let’s look a little more closely at some common prefixes and suffixes. The prefixes in-, un-, non-, and anti– generally pair up with certain Latin derivatives, (3) creating words such as inaccessible and unexhausted. On the other hand, a-, which means “without,” appears mostly with Greek derivatives, as in asymmetrical. (4) Non– is the broadest negative prefix and “may precede virtually any word.” (5) You might be curious about the meaning of some other prefixes you use all the time. If so, you’ve come to the right place. De– and dis-, as in dehumanize and disrespectful, mean “reverse of,” whereas mal– and mis-, as in malformed and misfortune, mean “bad” or “wrong.” (6) You’ll also run into more self-explanatory prefixes such as counter– and self-, which give us words such as counterintuitive and self-driving.
Now for some suffixes. As we’ve seen with –s and –ed, suffixes can change the plurality or tense of a base word. Other suffixes change the part of speech, as in –ity, which creates abstract nouns that express state or condition. (7) You can therefore change the adjective civil to the noun civility by adding this suffix. Another useful suffix is –able, which turns verbs into adjectives, as in teachable. Interestingly, this suffix is itself formed from a base word and another suffix (8): It is a combination of the Latin verb hab, which means “to have,” and the suffix –ile, which is added to words to express capability, susceptibility, and aptitude. (9)
Some Spelling and Punctuation Rules
When it comes to prefixes and suffixes, we need to keep some spelling and punctuation rules in mind. With most prefixes, there are no changes in the spelling when you add them to the beginning of words. One exception is with the prefix in-. The spelling changes to il-, im-, and ir– when certain letters follow this prefix. The words illogical, impossible, and irregular are created this way. (10)
Other spelling rules concern suffixes. (11) In general, when you add a suffix to a one-syllable word, you double the final consonant, and so bag plus the suffix –age yields baggage and run plus the suffix –ing yields running. When it comes to the one-syllable words bus and gas, however, both single letters and double letters are acceptable. The plural of bus, for instance, can be buses, with one S in the middle, or busses, with two.
Here are a few other rules. Let’s say you’re adding a suffix to a word ending in the letter E. If that E is silent, you should drop the E before a suffix beginning with a vowel, as in force and forcible, but there are many exceptions. Sometimes there are even two allowable spellings, as in bluish and blueish. As usual, check a reliable dictionary. Now, if the E at the end of the word is silent and you’re adding a suffix starting with a consonant rather than a vowel, you generally keep the E, as in white and whiteness. Of course, there are exceptions, as in wise and wisdom. One more spelling rule to keep in mind relates to words ending in the letter C when you add a suffix beginning with E, I, or Y. To avoid pronouncing the C like an S, you always add a K after the C, for example in the way panic becomes panicky.
Hyphens with Prefixes
Don’t panic, though; we aren’t going to make you learn any more spelling rules. We will, however, briefly discuss hyphens. Hyphens often make text more readable, and sometimes with prefixes and suffixes, we need to add a hyphen to avoid confusion. As you could have probably predicted, different affixes have different hyphenation rules. Most prefixed or suffixed words never need a hyphen, (12) but some always need a hyphen, and some can be hyphenated or not. Non-, for example, does not generally take a hyphen unless you are attaching it to a proper noun, (13) as in non-Newtonian fluid. For the most part, it’s safe not to hyphenate with your prefixes and suffixes, but you should always follow the style guidelines you’re meant to follow, and, of course, you can rely on your dictionary or style guide if you’re unsure.
In certain formations, however, a hyphen will be necessary. (14) For example, some prefixed words could be confused with words of similar spelling, as in resigned and re-signed. In the latter case, adding a hyphen after the prefix re– will greatly help readers. Sometimes, a word with a prefix might look odd or be hard to read if you don’t use a hyphen. Take coworker. Without a hyphen after the prefix co-, coworker might seem to have something to do with cows. Another time you should use a hyphen is to avoid double letters that might be confusing. When you’re using the suffix –like with the word shell, for example, three L’s in a row would look odd, and so you should hyphenate: shell-like.
Using Prefixes or Suffixes Alone
By definition, prefixes and suffixes are added to words to make other words. So is it allowed to use a prefix or suffix alone? Well, you can’t say, “Pre the wedding, I ordered invitations.” That’s just wrong. But we did see someone try to sound fancy by writing “Post the meeting…” That sentence was quickly edited to use the word after instead. In colloquial speech, however, you will find some prefixes that can stand alone. You might hear someone ask, “What ism do you believe in?” or “Are you anti that?” Maybe you’ll find yourself referring to a big truck as a semi, short for semitrailer. (15) For the most part, though, you should stick to using prefixes and suffixes with base words.
This article was written by Bonnie Mills, author of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier, who blogs at sentencesleuth.blogspot.com.
References
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Dictionary.com, “Affix,” https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/affix. Accessed July 6, 2015.
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Dictionary.com, “Suffix,” https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/suffix. Accessed July 6, 2015.
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Garner, Bryan. Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 563.
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Garner, Bryan. Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 563.
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Garner, Bryan. Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 563.
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Stilman, A. Grammatically Correct, Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1997, pp. 48-52.
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Dictionary.com, “-ity,” https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/-ity. Accessed July 6, 2015.
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Dictionary.com, “Able,” https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/able. Accessed July 6, 2015.
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Dictionary.com, “-ile,” https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/-ile. Accessed July 6, 2015.
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Garner, Bryan. Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 563.
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American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005, p. 371.
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Stilman, A. Grammatically Correct, Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1997, pp. 28-30.
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Garner, Bryan. Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 563.
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Stilman, A. Grammatically Correct, Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1997, pp. 28-30.
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Dictionary.com, “Semi,” https://dictionary.reference.com/browse/semi. Accessed July 6, 2015.
About the Author
Bonnie Mills has been a copyeditor since 1996.
