&gt; What’s the difference? It’s that -ful and -ly are Germanic endings, while -ity came in with French. French and Latin endings pull the accent closer – TEM-pest, tem-PEST-uous – while Germanic ones leave the accent alone.<p>As someone learning English as a second language, I must say that I&#x27;m really grateful to have read that passage. This spares me a lot of learning accents by rote.