The Letter <v> After Short and Long Vowels
1. Earlier we saw that, except for the word of, the sound [v] is always spelled one way.
That way is __________.
One reason we have spellings with double letters like <pp> and is to mark the difference between long and short vowels:
But since we don’t regularly use <vv>, we have no way to mark short vowels before [v] the way we use <pp> and to mark them before [p] and [t] in words like tapped and latter. So the letter <v> cannot tell us whether the vowel in front of it is long or short.
2. Put a ‘’ for “consonant” under the <v> in each of the following words. Then mark the letter right in front of the <v> and the letter right after the <v> with either another ‘’ if it’s a consonant or with a ‘’ if it’s a vowel:
3. You should have found that all twenty words have the same pattern. That pattern is _________.
4. Sort the twenty words into the following two groups:
Words in which the <v> comes right after a ...
5. Usually in the pattern VCV the first vowel is _________. But do all of the words with <v> as the consonant in the pattern VCV have a long vowel right in front of the <v>? ________.
6. The word ambiguous means “to be indefinite; to have more than one possible meaning.” Be ready to discuss this question: Why can we say that so far as long and short vowels are concerned, the letter <v> is ambiguous?
Word History. Ambiguous analyzes to amb + ig + uous. The prefix amb(i)- means “both.” The base ig means “drive, lead, act.” The suffix -uous forms adjectives with a meaning like “tending to.” So ambiguous has a root meaning like “tending to drive both ways or act both ways, tending to wander around.”