On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: #OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one in "appearance"? Because the vowel before the /r/ sound in "occur" is a lax (~"short") vowel and spelled with a single letter, while the vowel before the /r/ in "appear" is a tense (~"long") vowel and is written with a digraph. Spoken English doesn't have double consonants except in compounds, like "bird-dog", so between vowels written English uses double consonants to show that the preceding vowel is lax: bidding biding better meter laddies ladies hopping hoping runner runic -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel