The Write Way

29 March 2002

Doubling Consonants and Canberra 

Greetings,

We've just spent a weekend in Thenation'scapital, (also known as Canberra), visiting family. My mother is the youngest of five sisters and I'm the youngest of the ten cousins they produced (it's good to be able to think of yourself as the "youngest" anything once in a while!)

OK, now this gets a bit complicated, so you're going to have to concentrate ... Of the ten off-spring, there are only two "only children" - the son of my mother's middle sister and me. As a result, when we were kids, the two of us tended to gravitate towards each other at family gatherings - he was the big brother I didn't have and I was this annoying little creature who followed him everywhere demanding to have "horsey rides." 

Mum and my aunt are both now in their eighties (they won't mind me telling you that one is 84 and one is 89) but my aunt hasn't been well, so we headed south to Canberra.

In most countries, the capital city has usually evolved around a major port, at the mouth or junction of a river, at a key strategic point or somewhere that's logical ... but Canberra was the result of a compromise between rival cities Sydney and Melbourne when the Australian states united in 1901. The site of the capital had to be literally in the middle of these two or it was all going to end in tears.

Competitions were held to name and design the city, and after many guffaws behind closed doors at some of the entries, the Politicians, in their infinite wisdom, decided to call it what it had been called since the 1820s by the white settlers. And they'd called it what it had most likely been called by the Aborigines for the previous 21,000 years -  Canberra - which comes from the corruption of an Aboriginal word, corroboree meaning "meeting place."  (Another story claims the original word was misheard by Europeans as Kamberry - take your pick ...)

Walter Burley Griffin of Chicago, USA won the international competition to design the city - you can see his designs here.  

Actually, this is another case of "behind every successful man there's an equally successful woman" ... Walter's wife, Marion Mahony, did a series of fourteen drawings that apparently won over the judges and led to Australia's capital city being designed from the ground up by an American who had never seen the place. Marion and Walter's design included plans for public buildings and houses as well as for the actual layout of the city - but none of these were ever built.

The Burley Griffins moved out here in 1914 to supervise the design process ... What a fabulous opportunity!

Did you spend hours, hunched over a huge sheet of paper when you were a kid, designing whole towns and cities? I know I did. Just imagine being able to do it for real!

This is what Griffin said about his plan: 

...The site may be considered an irregular amphitheatre with Mount Ainslie at the north-east, flanked by Black Mountain and Mount Pleasant all forming the top galleries; with the slopes to the water, the auditorium - the waterway and flood-basin, the arena; with the southern slopes reflected in the basin, the terraced stage and setting of monumental Government structures sharply defined rising tier on tier to the culminating highest internal hill, Capital Hill; and with Mugga Mugga, Red Hill and the blue distant mountain ranges forming the back scene of the theatrical whole..."

Dominating Griffin's plan was a central artificial lake and a 'parliamentary triangle' in which the most important national buildings were to be placed. The surrounding residential areas had a geometric street pattern, circular and radial in shape, all fitting well into the general topography.(Source)

It's a lovely place - even though the circular design has been known to drive lesser mortals to strong drink ... On our way to and from the homes of various family members, we spent many a happy hour driving around the city, and around and around some more ... I was the driver and my husband was navigator - he has some rather unkind things to say on the subject of my sense of direction which we won't go into here.

To justify the time we spent (driving in aforementioned circles), we decided that we would look for vistas - and Canberra has them aplenty. The whole place is built around vistas - there's a wonderful line that starts with Mt Ainslie, takes in "new" Parliament House, "old" Parliament House, the artificial lake (Lake Burley Griffin), the War Memorial and mountains in the distance. And the trees ... they're beautiful. The amazing thing about Canberra is that it's all been done so quickly - it wasn't until 1957 that things really started happening.

The National Capital Development Commission was set up to establish Canberra as the seat of government and generally spruce the place up a bit, and over the next twenty years they really had a ball, splashing tax-payers' money around with gay abandon - bridges were built over a hypothetical lake, then a year later the lake materialised. Then the Mint, the National Library, the Botanic Gardens and the Carillon appeared. Then they added offices, shops and theatres to the city centre  ... 

Because it was a planned city, Canberra's growth was controlled and rather than filling in the city centre chock-a-block and letting suburbs sprawl around it, the NCDC oversaw the setting up of 'satellite towns' around the central city area, so it's all terrifically tidy and neat. 

See Canberra here  and while you're there, click on the Slide Show link to see what I'm talking about.

As I said, we travelled to Canberra to visit family ... oops. My spell-checker is having trouble with that, as it is wont to do. It wants me to write 'traveled' ... See? No red wiggly line now!

This topic caused some discussion on the Apostrophe forum recently. 

Bob Hale found a great reference ( Thomson & Martinet - A practical English Grammar) that clears up the problem - for some of us anyway:

Doubling the Consonant

A. Words of one syllable having one vowel and ending in a single consonant double the consonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel.

hit - hitting
knit - knitted
run - runner

BUT

keep - keeping (two vowels)
help - helped (two terminal consonants)
love - lover (terminal vowel)

B. Two or three syllable words ending in a single consonant following a single vowel double the final consonant when the stress falls on the last syllable.

acQUIT - acquitted
beGIN- beginner
deTER - deterred
but
MURmer - murmered
ANSwer - answered
ORBit - orbiting

C. The final consonant of handicap, kidnap or worship is also doubled.

D. Words ending in 'l' following a single vowel or two vowels pronounced separately (e.g. duel, dial) usually double the 'l'.

So, yar yar boo sucks to you spell-checker! I was right... it IS travelled. Well, where I live it's travelled.

It seems that Noah Webster has a lot to answer for - this is what dictionary.com has to say about the reason for the differences in US and British spelling:

Noah Webster, whose Blue Back Speller (1788) sold 82 million copies within a century of its publication, was a great pioneer of US English as opposed to British English. He said that establishing a national language was as important as winning the American Revolution itself. The spelling of such terms at theater instead of theatre and color instead of colour is Webster's legacy.

You can see more of these different ways of spelling. 

Seems that I made one person happy last week:

And Craig Keefer wrote a note when he sent his donation: I am no professional writer, but I play one on the Internet. Your wonderful newsletter has helped me in so many ways. People have actually told me they enjoy my website. Not too bad for a site made to promote a four-wheel drive shop... Thanks for the encouragement!

Consider the warm, fuzzy feeling you'll get when you donate to my Running Away Fund ... remember, it's just a little over 30 cents a week and you can choose how you want to pay:

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Now, don't you feel good?

If it's been a while since you visited Dr Morgenes and his pals at the Never-Ending Story, are you in for a surprise! You won't believe what's been happening ... 

Please feel free to add your chapter - this saga has been following the intrepid doctor, his wife, mother-in-law, the giant gerbil and Elvis for nearly two years now ... what can I say? 

Tell me more in the Never-Ending Story.  

Trev Quinn was moved by the Muse after reading last week's poetic offering:

If you had trouble trying to make all the accents, graves etc last week, you may be using a different font. Randy sent this suggestion:

The easiest way for users to create all of these accents, grave, etc. is to take a quick look at the windows character map. In most computers, this can be done by clicking on Start>>>>>Programs>>>>>Accessories>>>>Character Map. Then select the font that you want to use from the drop down menu. Then simply click on the character you want to create in the character map and it will display the correct code in the bottom left of the map, or you can copy/paste it. This is for windows users, I don't know about Macs. I've never had the opportunity to work with a Mac computer. (Randy)

This week's quiz: 

Match each word with the one closest in meaning below: obvious, profligate, instrumental, abominate, skill, fervent, recollection, grouchy, outline, magnitude

10.hedonism

Regular reader, Larry, has this contribution:

Honeymoon: the interval between "I do" and "you'd better."    

I'm always interested to find out what subscribers do with their time (when they're not waiting patiently for their next issue of this newsletter, that is). Larry makes carpetbags! 

Drop by and read about the history of these great bags. I bet you didn't know that Cleopatra more than likely used one, did you? And do you know why they're called carpetbags? Bet you don't! No, it's not what you think ... go and have a look. 

You can also see photos of some of the bags Larry and his team make by hitting the Quick Trip link and find out how he got started by reading About Us. I don't know about you, but I rather fancy the idea of strolling along a boulevard with my carpetbag slung over my shoulder ... then stopping at a café ... Garçon!

Last week's quiz:

Match 'em up: hasten, unlucky, broadcast, introverted, increase, create, illustrate, excessive, impulsive, passion

If you know someone who'd like to start the weekend with a bit of a chuckle (and some writing tips of course)  - just send them this link:  mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogroups.com  

A Little Something Extra

When you're writing for general consumption, you need to follow certain conventions of style. These have evolved over the years as the most effective / efficient ways to convey ideas to a mass readership, so who are we to buck the system?

You'll often find that there are 'in-house' variations on these, so follow the lead of your own organisation / community.

NB Organisation is a perfect example - US-based spelling prefers organization, but in Australia, Britain and other places, it's organisation.

The important point with style is to be consistent. If you use organisation on your first page, then that's how it must be spelled (or spelt ...) on every page.

Read the rest of this article on Points of Style. 

Palindrome:   Egad, a base tone denotes a bad age.

Word of the week: Limnophobia (n) Fear of lakes ... no point going to Canberra if you suffer from this!

This week's Latin phrase could have been our catch-cry as we approached the bridge over Lake Burley Griffin for the third time and sailed past our exit:

Nunc est bibendum! (Now we must drink!)

Regards,

Jennifer

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