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To: Mayr Fortuna

Hmmmm.

I’ll treat this as a serious question.

Generally, the double consanant is employed to preserve the short vowel sound preceeding it. If a vowel is followed by a consonant and another vowel, it takes the long sound of the vowel (when two vowels go walking, they play a little game. The last vowel is silent, the first says it’s own name.) and the second is not sounded.

An example is found by the word “rap”. It means to hit something, like knocking on a door and is synonymous with “tap”. If it is an on-going action we give it an “-ing” suffix. However, to preserve the vowel sound we must double the “p”, thus “rapping.”

If we didn’t double the “p” the “a” would be sounded with the long sound, making the word “raping”. That has a different meaning entirely.

Hope this helps.


10 posted on 01/09/2011 5:32:17 AM PST by Jemian (War Eagle, no matter what!)
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To: Jemian

Flash back to “grammar” school. Still makes my head hurt. The “rules” drove me crazy, especially because there were so many exceptions. For an A.R. type, it was pure heck. I before E EXCEPT after C. Yea, right. That sure makes sense.


16 posted on 01/09/2011 5:39:04 AM PST by Gadsden1st
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