Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site harvard.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!harvard!sullivan From: sullivan@harvard.ARPA (John Sullivan) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: British, American spelling of past tenses Message-ID: <1@harvard.ARPA> Date: Fri, 10-Aug-84 00:03:33 EDT Article-I.D.: harvard.1 Posted: Fri Aug 10 00:03:33 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Aug-84 19:21:19 EDT Organization: Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard Lines: 10 The rule I learned, which seems to apply almost all the time, is that the final consonant in a verb is doubled when forming the past tense only if that final syllable is accented. Thus "canceled" has just one 'l' (although I must admit it looks strange to me, and recently when I used it I had to look it up to assure myself it wasn't an exception), while a word like "rebelled" gets a second 'l'. I don't know of any exceptions to the rule off hand. John M. Sullivan sullivan@harvard.{uucp,arpa}