The solid sign is the 28th letter of the current alphabet, which fragile minds are often confused with the soft and do not understand where to write it. A solid sign does not mean any sound and in modern Russian language performs an exclusively dividing function in the pronunciation of certain words. This article will tell you about the spelling of a solid sign in words.
Letter meaning
A solid sign is one of the oldest letters of the Russian language, which existed in Cyrillic graphics from the very appearance of the Russian alphabet, but at that time denoted a sound that in some roots could be pronounced as the sound “o”. And the solid sign at that time was called “ep” and its spelling was somewhat different from the current one. But in the 20th century, spelling reform took place that changed the meaning of the pronunciation of a given letter, and now a solid sign performs only a dividing function, but despite this, it plays an equally important role in the Russian language and you should not forget about it either.
Hard spelling for words
And now, in our time, there are several elementary rules for spelling a solid sign, which are not at all difficult to remember:
- A solid sign is always written before the letters e, e, u, i. Thus, it is placed after the prefix if it ends in a consonant, for example: cringe; drive up.
- A solid sign is written in words of foreign origin, such as: adjutant; subject; object and others.
- In complex words, "b" also performs a dividing function, where the above letters are at the beginning of the second root. An example is complex words - two-tier, three-tiered).
Note: a solid sign is NOT put in abbreviated words, for example: state language, special specialist and others.
Examples
Let’s take a look at a few words with a solid sign so that we don’t get confused anymore.
So, for example, the words “shooting”, “porch”, “immense”, “present” belong to the first category (words with a prefix ending in a consonant).
And such words as “pan-European”, “conjunctivitis”, “disjunction”, “injection” refer to words of foreign language origin.
And finally, the words “three-tier”, “four-tier” are complex words, at the beginning of the second root of which are the letters “e”, “e”, “u”, “I”.
We conclude: the words “quadrangular”, “biaxial”, “three-story”, “two-aspect” do not spell a solid separating sign, because they use the letters “u”, “o”, “e”, “a”, and in front of them no solid dividing sign.
Be literate and never forget the rules of our native, powerful Russian language!