Category:Quirk class Note 3. 10

This is not so much one of Quirk (1985)'s 7 classes of irregular verbs as the label of section 10 of Chapter 3. This is a note on the Treatment of -y in the section on The spelling of regular verb inflections. The note provides for two exceptions to the rule where "the -y- remains where it follows a vowel letter: stay ~stayed, alloy ~ alloys, etc".

• These exceptions are pay ~ paid, and lay ~ laid, in which the y changes to i after -a-. Another seeming exception is say: but Quirk allocates this to Class 3 F on the grounds that the the -s form (3rd sing. pres.) is pronounced irregularly (with the vowel of 'get', IPA: /ɛ/ rather than the vowel of 'say' (IPA: /eɪ/.

Note [c] adds that the derivatives repay, mislay and waylay behave as do 'pay' and 'lay'; but draws attention to confusion between the two verbs spelled relay. See relay (disambiguation). (There is a much rarer ambiguity about repay.)