The English language is a weird one alright. There are rules for this and rules for that but just when you think you’ve got to grips with them then the exceptions come!
Grammar Tips For Verbs
When adding -ing and -ed to verbs, we sometimes double the consonant beforehand. People are often confused with ‘worshipped/worshiped’, ‘focussed/focused’ and ‘targetted/targeted’. See below for examples:
bar / barring / barred
beg / begging / begged
permit / permitting / permitted
occur / occurring / occurred
But… if the preceding vowel is unstressed then we do not double! See examples:
visit / visiting / visited
enter / entering / entered
Wait, there’s more… how about verbs ending in ‘p’
OK, develop, gossip etc. follow the unstressed rule, so far so good, but… there are exceptions:
worship / worshipping / worshipped
kidnap / kidnapping / kidnapped
Yep, there’s more… some words change their spelling by adding a letter ‘k’:
panic / panicking / panicked
traffic / trafficking / trafficked