(Sorry this image is a bit unclear. My penmanship and my computer ability are both at fault.)
In Anniversary the word disintegrate is written as [1] (in simplified as [2]). I had been looking at my dictionary for another word when I found this odd-looking form for disintegrate. I had never come across that strange bend after the ‘s’ before the ‘nt’ of intr.
Left to myself I would have written it as [3] or [4], using the disjoined prefix ‘n’ for intr/inter — made compound by the preceding dis.
The official form [1] is very ugly; and cumbersome to write. I wonder how it was decided that that was how to do it. Were I aiming at a form based on that of integrate [5] (still rather ugly, though not strange), I would have made an exception to how ‘s’ follows ‘d’ (paragraph 49 of the Manual) and written [6]. But that is still awkward. So why did they not go for [3]? — which is what I will use should I need to. Has anyone found any similar construction elsewhere?
I know I am being very picky but such seeming oddities unsettle me.