shahbaz

[Laurence Horn]

>Arnold wrote about Malcolm X's surname:
>    >>>>>
>Shabazz.  though you can find it misspelled as Shabbaz.
>  <<<<<
>
>I think you can find almost any word that has a double letter misspelled by
>having the doubling applied to some other letter. "I know there's been a
>double letter in there somewhere... well, that looks OK." I call this
>phenomenon floating gemination, although of course "gemination" usually
>refers to phonology, not orthography.
>
One frequent case in point is "assymetry" or "assymetric".  I'm
always noting in the margins that there's no "ass" in "asymmetry".

L