Take these three words:
Soup
Super
Supper
The first two words, Soup
and Super
both begin with the same sound: soo
. However the addition of a p
in supper
changes the pronunciation from soo
to suh
(short-u). Is there a "rule" in the English language that defines that the double letter modifies the preceding vowel pronunciation? Or is this just one of those "because English is complicated" things?