In working through the 5,000 most used forms (Anniversary), I came across things I don’t understand. Could someone explain to me why circle vowels are sometimes ommitted even when they occur in accented syllables?
Examples:
pen – no “e”
pig – no “i”
pity – no “i”
bid – no “i”
beauty – no “eau”
but:
pan, pin, peg, pick, pit, and bit all have the vowel
On a related note, why does “happiness” have the joining it does? I thought circle vowels were supposed to go outside of angles (p and n).
Thanks a bunch!
Brian
(by thousandwaves
for everyone)
for everyone)
Some of these have reasons, others is because of usage (remnants of previous versions). This is where memory comes into play. 1. pan – pen – pin: these are written differently so that you can distinguish them. In fact, all words that start with pen- are written without the e. 2. peg – pig: same reason as (1) 3. pick and peck are written with the e, perhaps because in rapid writing they could be confused with "book" 4. bed and bid – without the e, so that they become easier to write and more frequent 5. pet and pit would have the vowel to distinguish it from "part" 6. beauty is a brief form (so all rules go out the window) 7. happiness is written with that joining to make the suffix -ness distinctive and easily recognizable
… and bet and bit are written with the e, because the word "better" used to be a brief form written as b – t in Preanniversary Gregg.
Reading about the reasons for how things are is very interesting. I have wondered about changes across different versions of Gregg, for example, Anni has th-n for both the words then and than. Anni has th-m for the word them. Then/them = th-n/th-m. It seems consistent. In my DJS book, however, I see that th-e-n is used for the word then. I wonder if the change was purely a shorthand consideration or if the fact that some students confused then/than in their English schoolwork was a factor in the decision. My Series 90 book emphasizes that it is also trying to teach correct form with respect to "…the nonshorthand elements of transcription, which include vocabulary development, spelling, punctuation, grammar, and typing style."
Could the DJS inclusion of the e in the word then have anything to do with these English education considerations?
That may have very well been the reason for the inclusion of the e.