Spelling How to spell: after or after

Queries about spelling in search engines and digital dictionaries offer an x-ray of the main doubts that users have when writing a text

Spelling How to spell: after or after

Queries about spelling in search engines and digital dictionaries offer an x-ray of the main doubts that users have when writing a text. And the accentuation of the words is among the top positions. Although the basic rules for the use of the tilde are very simple, as we will see later, the truth is that many people look for how common words are spelled correctly. Is the case of the adverb after... Or is it written after? With or without accent?

We are talking about an adverb that means "behind" (I'll come in after you), "next" (Dinner is offered after the appetizer), "later" (See you later) and denotes temporal, spatial or hierarchical posteriority (Many consider that Maradona has been the best soccer player in history after Pelé).

As can be seen in the previous examples, after is always written with a tilde in the second "e". To explain why this is so, we must begin by separating the word into syllables: des-pués. It is a two-syllable term, whose tonic syllable (the one pronounced with greater intensity) is the last syllable; that is to say, we are before a sharp word.

And, according to the general rules of accentuation, acute words ending in a vowel, in -n or -s are written with an accent. As an example, these buttons: hopefully, Andrés, coal, sang, scoundrel, stumble... Then it ends in -s and it is a sharp word, so we must also add the graphic accent. The only exceptions to the rule are acute words ending in -s or -n preceded by another consonant: zigzags, robots.

Once the doubt about how to write "after" has been cleared up, it is worth opening the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) to address other issues related to said adverb:

Finally a brief review of the rules. Words are classified as acute, flat and esdrújulas, according to the place occupied by the tonic syllable, that is, the one that is pronounced with greater intensity.

And they are written with tilde:

According to the criteria of The Trust Project