Grapheme clusters, a.k.a.real characters

[MRAB]

On 2017-07-19 09:29, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz>:
> 
>> Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>>>  * a final "v" receives a superfluous "e" ("love")
>>
>> It's not superfluous there, it's preventing "love" from looking like
>> it should rhyme with "of".
> 
> I'm pretty sure that wasn't the original motivation. If I had to guess,
> the reason was the possible visual confusion with "w".
> 
> An interesting tidbit is that the English spelling demonstrates how the
> [o] sound regularly shifted into an [ʌ] sound in front of nasals and
> "v":
> 
>     dove
>     love
>     hover

In UK English, "hover" has the short-O sound.

>     cover
>     shove
>     above
> 
>     sponge
>     come
>     among
>     front
>     done
>     son
>     monk
>     monkey
> 
> Again, exceptions abound:
> 
>     on
>     wrong
>     song
>     gone
>     long
> 
Also:

     cove
     stove

and then there's:

     move

which is different again.