Consonant dubbling rules

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* Consonant dubbling should ocur after a short and stressed vowel.

* One-syllable words remain the same as long as they are not misleading in terms of pronunciation. Exceptions are "scrole"(scroll) and "strole"(stroll), for example.

* As for two-syllable words and their derivatives, the basic rule has to be absolute as long as reformed spellings are not misleading.
e.g.: better, betterment, bizzy(but "bizness"), cadett, dubble, dubbling, heffer, posess, posession, propper, propperty(or "property")

* Two-letter symbols or consonant clusters are not dubbled. But you still have "cattle", "dubble"(double), "hussle"(hustle), and "jossle(jostle).

* As for words that have three or four syllables, logical dubbled consonants should be retained(e.g.: fallacy, gallery, oddity, occupy, terrible). But you don't have to spell "comoddity", "doccument", "mellody", and "tellefone".

* Surplus dubbled consonants should be denyed.
e.g.: acommodate, acount, apear, baloon, comercial, comittee, comunicate, conect, corect, falacious, posession, scrole, strole, terific

* The final dubbling "-ss" is allowed whether its preceding vowel is stressed or not. And we retain unstressed suffixes --- "-less" and "-ness".
e.g.: abyss, amiss, success ; furniss, justiss, prommiss, purposs, lettus/lettiss
e.g.: carelessness, highness

* Neither soft C nor soft G will be dubbled. If we retain soft/hard C and G, we will not have to spell "assid"(acid), "tassit"(tacit) ; "majjic"(magic), "majjical"(magical), and "majician"(magician).

Glad im not learning english...

The above-mentioned rules (for modification) may look a little complicated.

In "traditional" English, consonant dubblings sometimes ocur after short vowels, whether stressed or unstressed. In some cases, however, "o" before "ll" is pronounced like /ou/(diphthong) as in "roller". In other words, if you see a consonant dubbling, its preceding vowel is short anyway, except a small number of exceptions. Such explanation might seem very simple to some peeple, but I hate it!

cancel - canceling, canceled
worship - worshiped
kidnap - kidnaped
label - labeled
level - leveled
benefit - benefited

stupid - stupider, stupidest

>>level - leveled <<

Kenna wrote "leveled", not "levveled". Shouldn't we dubble "v"?

Which do you like better, "clever" or "clevver"?

There are words such as "bevvy", "civvy", "flivver", "luvvie", "navvy", "savvy", and "skivvy". So, it seems to me that "cuvver", "devvil", "hevvy", "hovver", "levvy", and "sevven" are tolerable, logically. But it will take time before our eyes are willing to accept them.

>>* As for two-syllable words and their derivatives, the basic rule has to be absolute as long as reformed spellings are not misleading.
e.g.: better, betterment, bizzy(but "bizness"), cadett, dubble, dubbling, heffer, posess, posession, propper, propperty(or "property") <<

This rule works well in these cases:

citty/cittizen
collumn/collumnist
crittic/crittical
eppic/eppical
moddest/moddesty
pivvot/pivvotal
propper/propperty

But ｔｈe following cases are a little bit puzzling as to dubbling.

attom/atomic(or "atommic")
civvil/civvilize/civilian(or "civillian")
habbit/habitual
offiss/offisser/oficial
opose/opposit/opposition
phonnics/phonetic(or "phonettic")
sollemn/solemnity

Should we spell "atommic","civillian","phonettic"? This question arises because of the rule shown below:

* As for words that have three or four syllables, logical dubbled consonants should be retained(e.g.: fallacy, gallery, oddity, occupy, terrible). But you don't have to spell "comoddity", "doccument", "mellody", and "tellefone".

This rule looks like an obstacle now, but it is originally to avoid some confusion from "stress shifts". This problem has been pointed out by Elizabeth Andrews. She has also proposed a solution. The below is a citation from http://www.reform-english-spelling.com./

>>The question remains as to what we should do about the fact that many two-syllabled words and most longer words don’t use the practice of doubling a following consonant letter to indicate a short stressed vowel. We could decide to use consonant doubling consistently throughout the language which would create e.g. habbit (like rabbit), pannel (like channel), lemmon, commet, impeddiment, concilliatory, domminant, reggular, crittical, vetteran, compettitive, gennerous, acommodate, tellescope, teleppathy, astrollogy. One problem with this is that, as well as introducing double consonants everywhere, in words where the stress shifts in different forms of the same word we would have double letters in one form and not in another, or even different letters that had to be doubled, for example, habbit, habittual; acommodate, acomodation; geommetry, geomettric; tellescope, telescoppic; astronnomy, astronommical; mollecule, moleccular/moleckular, which is an extravagant and confusing way of representing what is really no more than a stress shift. The best solution is simple but the idea might not be initially popular: to use accents. An accent allows the short stressed vowel to be specified without having to double consonants so different forms of the same word can show the same spelling in the base word, for example, geómetry, geométric, télescope, telescópic, astrónomy, astronómical, mólecule, molécular, telépathy, telepáthic, acómodate, acomodation, córelate, corelation. Atrium would stay as it is whilst átrophy would take an accent; sacred would stay as it is whilst sácrilege would take an accent; mediate would stay as it is whilst méditate would take an accent; codify would stay as it is whilst módify would take an accent. Real, reality would become real, reálity. Some other words: cave, cávern, cávity, cómerce, comercial, régular, regulation, prophétic, acetic, ascétic, nature, nátural, státure, ratio, rátion, nation, nátional, placate, implácable, species, spécial, speciálity, récord (noun), record (verb), désert (noun), desert (verb), véteran, dóminant, alácrity, astrólogy, compétitive, ephémeral, impédiment, indélible, ácid, cámel, cómet, chérish, féral, fórest, métal (cf. fetal), lémon (cf. demon), dévil (cf. evil), canál (cf. anal, apal). This would go a long way towards clarifying English pronunciation and would be a great help to foreign learners of the language and native speakers learning new vocabulary.<<

Indeed this could be a solution, but using accent marks must be cumbersome when you write even if it is educational.

What do you think? And what would you do?

http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/pvs/pv13bell.php

>>The simplest way to cure the problem would be to eliminate all surplus doubled letters and to introduce systematic doubling in words which clearly fail to do so. If at least the most common words followed English phonic patterns, children would have a better chance of grasping them when they first learn to read and write. There is, however, generally quite strong resistance to making words longer.<<

Home-made
Ben-Nevis

bought = katta
shoulder = kata

Proposed Consonant Doubling Rules.

"cancel - canceling, canceled
worship - worshiped
kidnap - kidnaped
label - labeled
level - leveled
benefit - benefited "

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That's only in American Englisn.

In British English it's -

cancel - cancelling, cancelled
worship - worshipped
kidnap - kidnapped
label - labelled
level - levelled
benefit - benefited (I think that one's the same)

I don't understand why Americans don't double their consonants in those circumstances. British English uses double consonants because if you didn't then the pronounciation of the world would change.

For example, the Americans say "worship-worshiped" but that seems strange to British people because that means, to us, that the letter "i" in "worshiped" is pronounced like the "i" in the word "stripe."

So in order for the "i" to remain the same pronounciation as it is in "worship", then Briish English uses double-P for the past tense - "worshipped". That seems more grammatically correct, because "worshiped" should really rhyme with "stripe"!

That's another case where British English has it right and American English has it wrong.

Again, in American, they say "kidnaped". To a Brit, that makes no sense. To us, that word should rhyme woth "aped".

So we add an extra P to stoped it from rhyming with "aped" - kidnapped.

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