As I listened to NPR on my morning commute, I heard a story about the Walapai indian "Skywalk" over the Grand Canyon. It sounds really cool (but not for acrophobics!) and I hope to experience it someday. Anyhoo.... I got to thinking about the spelling of the tribe's name, and that instinctively I thought "walapi", not "wallapi". Then I wondered why I thought that, and decided that when dealing with a language other than English, I usually leave out doubled letters such as "ll", "rr", "ss" and so on. Does anyone know why English has these, even though they often have the same sound as a single letter? I realize there are some rules about a v_c_v causing the first vowel to change to short from long (ex: pinning/pining), but that's often not a factor. Spanish has "rr" and "ll", but they are distinct phonemes from the single letters. :0)