Two for 't'
Sir, I must rise to the defence of Her Majesty's Government's spelling in the White Paper of one of The two words cited in ' A Spectator's Notebook' (March 24). Combatting must be correct. Combat is a noun and combat is a verb — or used to be when I was in school — therefore it comes under the rule that monosyllables and words accented on the last syllable ending in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, double the consonant before adding a suffix beginning with a vowel. Type words beginning, stopped, occurrence. Doesn't that clear it up nicely? Pedanticly yours, Webster Porter ' 7919 Schloss Osterberg, Uber Illertissen /Schwaben Whatever Colonel Porter may have learned at school, the Oxford Dictionary and Chambers's Dictionary both put the accent on the first syllable of ' combat ' (noun and verb) and both give ' combated ' and ' combating (and nothing else) for the participial forms. — Editor, The Spectator.
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