The 'false graphemes' conundrum has origins in 3 misunderstood concepts about Eng orthography:
1. The role of final silent E
2. Why consonants double
3. Morphemic boundaries
Doing talks on this in 2023 & the Writing for Life book will contain alternatives to false graphemes.
@lifelonglit
Do consonants double dependent on the vowel’s sound before the final letter? Long, don’t double. Short, double. That’s what I’ve always believed. Moped vs mopped etc 🤷♀️🤔
@MissShawTweets
Yes, that's one reason. Another, which is often overlooked, is that assimilated morphemes (ad-, in-, co- etc.) will take on the initial consonant of the following morpheme: aggressive, irresponsible, corrupt. It's not that <gg> or <rr> are graphemes.
@lifelonglit
The doubling consonants are interesting. Can you please clarify where the syllable break occurs in your experience? I often see notation like run-ning, bat-tle. However my ear wants to represent as ru-nning, ba-ttle.
@cleandave11
This is how I think about it: Syllable breaks don’t necessarily OCCUR. They are analysed. Or not.
You can analyse a word along morphemic lines, rendering breaks at morphemic boundaries.
You can analyse along orthographic/phonetic lines too.
Sometimes the systems don’t match.