On Feb 24, 2004, at 4:13 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > 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 > > Are you suggesting that a double-consonant is a laxative, or is that merely pararectal?