Why don't we double the final consonant in the word cooking [closed]

SO here is the rule I find about doubling consonant

if a word ends with a short vowel sound plus a consonant, and the stress is on the last syllable, then the final consonant is doubled if you add an ending that starts with a vowel.

I find this rule to be much more powerful than the one I learned at school, aka:V+C, But the rule doesn't seem to apply to cooking, which is not doubled. Is this a contradiction of the rule I quoted above? (I am not so sure about the short vowel but, but simple Google tells me that ʊ in cooking is indeed a short vowel. )

Also, if cooking is indeed an exception to this rule, are there any other similar exceptions that I should be aware of?

Solution 1:

Doubling final consonants:

Consonants (often) get doubled in CVC combinations, where the vowels are represented with a single grapheme, not digraphs.

The last C in CVC is the final consoant.

Examples:

• Rob -> r-C o-V b-C -> robbed, robbing.
• mop -> m-C o-V p-C -> mopped, mopping.
• Pin -> p-C i-V n-C -> pinned, pinning

Consonant in CVVC or CVCC combinations (digraphs) does not get doubled.

'Cook' uses a digraph to represent the /ʊ/ sound and the consonant after digraph does not get doubled so the 'k' in cooking does not get doubled.

Examples:

• Cook -> cooked, cooking — the 'k' does not get doubled.
• Team -> teamed, teaming — the 'm' does not get doubled because it uses a digraph 'ea' to represent the phoneme /iː/
• Deem -> deemed, deeming — the 'm' does not get doubled because it uses a digraph 'ee' to represent the phoneme /iː/.

Consonant after a diphthong does not get doubled. (Almost all the words that have 'diphthong + consonant' often have magic/silent e after the consonant. In fact, the diphthong is a result of adding 'magic e').

Examples:

• Hop -> hopped — the P gets doubled because it's preceded by a vowel /ɒ/. On the other hand, hope -> hoped — the P does not get doubled because it is preceded by a diphthong /əʊ/ (the magic e at the end of 'hope' also indicates that).
• Pipe -> piped — the P does not get doubled because it's preceded by a diphthong /aɪ/ (the magic e at the end of 'pipe' also indicates that). On the other hand, pip -> pipped — the P gets doubled because it's preceded by a vowel /ɪ/.
• Rat -> ratted — the T gets doubled because it's preceded by a vowel /æ/. On the other hand, rate -> rated — the T does not get doubled because it's preceded by a diphthong /eɪ/ (the magic e at the end of 'rate' also indicates that).

In most cases (multisyllabic words, I believe), it depends on stress and does not follow CVC method. When the stress is on the last syllable, the consonant gets doubled.

Examples:

• Elicit /ɪˈlɪsɪt/ -> elicited — the T does not get doubled because the last syllable is unstressed.

• Interpret /ɪnˈtəːprɪt/ -> interpreted — the T does not get doubled because it's a part of unstressed syllable.

• Admit /ədˈmɪt/ -> admitted — the T gets doubled because the last syllable is stressed.

Solution 2:

Consonant doubling isn't just based on pronunciation. A single consonant following a vowel digraph does not get doubled by the doubling rule, regardless of how the vowel digraph is pronounced. The main digraphs that you'll see representing a short vowel before a word-final consonant letter are I think "oo" and "ea", especially in combination with certain consonants (like "ook", "ead", "eat"). So other examples are booking, hooking; heading, spreading, threading; sweating.

A vowel digraph is defined for the purpose of this rule as a pair of vowel letters that together represent a single vowel sound. Note that words like quit and duet do not contain vowel digraphs: the "UI" letter sequence in quit represents a consonant-vowel sequence /wi/ and the "UE" letter sequence in duet represents a vowel-vowel sequence.