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Three letter rule

From Teflpedia

The three letter rule is a spelling rule in English that states that content words are almost always spelt with three or more letters, whereas two-letter words tend to be function words.[1]

To avoid three letters, words may have consonant doubling, e.g. add, Ann, app, ebb, eff, egg, ell, ess, ill, inn, or a final E, e.g. axe, bye, dye, lye, wye.

This is one of the main reasons why British spelling prefers axe over ax. Ox (the animal) is only two letters. Most other two-letter content words are of more recent origin, or letters of the Greek alphabet (mu, nu, pi and xi).

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