John Hasler wrote:
And what "default" rule is that?That a vowel followed by a single consonant followed by a vowel is "long". Examples: de fault rule si lent di rectly pro nounce conso nant wrote line u ser date re sent o beying re quest There are, of course, numerous exceptions. Debian is one of them.
LOL.I can't believe this. I made an offhand comment on this and it's turned into a major thread.
The problem with all your examples here that don't have a silent e on the end of the word are that the vowel is at the end of the syllable. Notice how I broke the syllables in your list above. This isn't true of Debian because of where the word originated: Deb + Ian.
end ing ten sion len ten tem per Deb ian :D ten der hel i cop ter len derNotice all these words have a short e followed by a single consonant that is at the of the syllable. These are both a pretty good phonetic rules to follow. They won't steer you wrong very often.