4 STUDIES IN ENGLISH SPELLING. 
bitter, sloppy, shutter. In the usual method of pronouncing such 
words only one of these consonants is sounded. The question 
arises, ‘‘ What is the use of the second letter?” Now, H-a-t 
spells ‘‘ hat,” and e-r is pronounced “er,” and yet when you put 
the two together they do not spell ‘‘ hatter” but “ hater,” and it 
is the same with the other words just mentioned. To express 
the sound “hatter”? we have to duplicate the middle consonant. 
But why? It is another result of the change of alphabet resulting 
from the Norman Conquest. 
Take for example the words 
hat hate 
bit bite 
shit shite 
In those in the first column the vowel is short, but the addition 
of a final mute ‘ e,” as in the second column, has the effect of 
lengthening the vowel. It should be noticed that this only applies 
to syllables whose final consonant is single. The addition of a 
mute ‘*e” to sucha word as “fish” or “hand” would make no 
difference at all to the sound. 
And a mute “‘e” is not the only addition which lengthens the 
vowel. Any one syllable commencing with any vowel has the 
same effect. Thus :— 
hat hated 
bit biter 
slop slopy 
shit shiting. 
But how is this effect to be counteracted when we wish to add 
a syllable commencing with a vowel, and yet not lengthen the 
preceding vowel ; when, for instance, we wish to say “hat-er,” not 
“‘ha-ter?”’ To prevent the ‘‘er” being attached directly to the 
‘‘hat,” thus lengthening the vowel ‘‘a,” we put another “t”’ 
between the “hat” and the “er,” but this second ‘‘t” we do 
not pronounce. 
In further proof, I would notice that we do not do it in such 
a word as “heat” where the vowel sound is long already, whereas 
we do do it in a dissyllable like ‘‘ fulfil,” where the second syllable 
