I’ve very recently completed the Simplified manual, and have been practicing by writing out daily news updates from the Nytimes. Since it’s all that the news is about these days, I’ve run into the word quarantine quite a bit. The simplified dictionary has the word ending with a t-n stroke. Based on the manual, I thought that the t-n stroke was only for unaccented vowels, whereas I pronounce quarantine ending with “teen.” What gives?
I’ve seen this in several other words that I can’t remember at the moment, with a T-N or D-N standing in for things that aren’t ten, den, tain, etc. Relatedly, maybe I’ve just been blind, but I can’t remember seeing the word “done” in the simplified manual, (or in the dictionary) but it seems to be the D-N blended stroke in older versions, which isn’t one of the vowels that would be used in this blend.
Thanks for any clarification you all can give!
"Done" is the blend in phrases, at least in Anni.
https://gregg.angelfishy.net/anunit30.shtml
The general convention that was adopted was to spell out t-e-n for "tine" sound if the stress of the word fell on that syllable, and use the blend otherwise. Since in "quarantine" the stress of the word resides on the first syllable, "tine" is written as ten. Notice that in the words "routine" and "dentine", it is spelled out.
With regards to "done", a rule in Anniversary stated that the blend can be used as a substitute for (1) "done" in many phrases (for example, "I have done"), and (2) "do not" if it is preceded by a pronoun ("I do not", "we do not", etc.). So in Anniversary, the phrase "I have done" would be written as a-v-den blend (instead of a-v-d-n in Simplified), and "I do not" would be written as a-den blend (instead of a-d-oo hook-n in Simplified). The blend for "done" was dropped in Simplified because it could not be used all the time (paraphrasing the authors' reason, "in many phrases it could be used, but in many phrases it couldn't"), and the blend for "do not" was dropped because some learners found the rule confusing. (Personally, I like using the blend because it's much quicker once you know when to use it.)
Incidentally, the blend for “done” is an Anniversary feature.
That all makes sense, thank you!
You're welcome!
How you tell if T-E-N is teen or tern? (Or are there so few words that could be confused that it isn't a problem?)
That's not a problem. Context tells you, plus there are not that many words.