Re: Spelling

On Mon, 2002-07-08 at 04:14, Abrigon Gusiq wrote:
> It depends the word used, wether -tion and -sion are the same or
> different.
>
> Notion and Session, they are the same, atleast to my ears. Maybe is my
> dialect of English. Alaska can be a bit odd.
>
> Nation is similiar or ..
Another thing to remember about -tion and -ssion and why we have both is
that -tion is the single consonant version and -ssion the doubled one:
notion is /"n8uS@n/ with a long first syllable; session is /"seS@n/ with
a short one. If we merged them in to one, 'setion' would long more like
/"si:S@n/ or 'nossion' would look like /"nOS@n/. (Can't think of a
minimal pair, such as it would be, off the top of my head.) English has
lots of rules that seem to be stupid, some overlapping on others. But it
all makes perfect sense, eventually. At least, so long as you're half
mad.

If you feel like complaining about 'cleaver' and 'clever' being
backwards, though, go ahead. (That is, -eaCV-, especially where the -C-
is a -v- tends to have a short -ea- (e.g. endeavour, I've had more but I
have a memory like a sieve), and words with -evV(-) tend to have a long
-e- (e.g. lever, again, sieve-for-memory). So you get people misspelling
'cleaver' and 'clever' backwardly. 'Oh, that's very cleaver, isn't it?'
and the like. Although given Americans pronounce 'lever' with a short
'e' instead of a long one, the same feeling mightn't be experienced over
there.)

Tristan.

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