whatever happened to 'mit'?

[tearinghair]

We have transmit, permit, admit, commit and goodness knows how many more, but what happened to the simple 'mit'? I know they all come from Latin mittere, to send, + various prepositions, but it seems a shame that the root verb has disappeared. Probably too late to start a campaign to reinstate it? I shall now press the submit button...

[carmalee]

and commit it to the floor.

[vivandorron]

Sorry, but I don't really understand the question.

The only MIT I am aware of, is by way of an abbreviation for Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I now remit and submit, herewith.:-)

Ron.

[tearinghair]

I suppose it wasn't really a question, Vivandorron, as I don't think tyere's a clear answer. I was simply wondering why there isn't a simple verb 'to mit', meaning 'send' in English (particularly since there is a noun formed from it, i.e. 'mission'). Perhaps it did exist back in the mists of time and got lost somewhere along the way.

[Stargazer]

Those words have a peculiar way of being spelled differently when in the past tense. ie some have a double "t" whereas others do not. Confusing for us pedants!

[plautus]

It never existed in the English language, only compound forms derived from the Latin. These compound forms would need two words if English words were used, e.g. send across for transmit, send back for remit &c. There is no need for 'mit' when we have a simple English word.

[tearinghair]

Probably, Plautus, but if we followed that strictly there'd be no synonyms?
Stargazer, I found an explanation of single/double t in a little book that was given away with a newspaper years ago; the explanation is complicated, but the examples are helpful:
'do not double the final consonant when adding endings which begin with a vowel to a word which ends with a vowel plus a consonant, if the stress is not at the end of the word;' e.g. benefit/benefiting/benefited but transmit/transmitting/transmitted.

[plautus]

To add to that explanation: if a word ends in a single vowel plus a single consonant that consonant is doubled only if the last syllable is stressed. The exception is that if the last letter is L it is always doubled, whether stressed or not (but not in American English). Thus we write 'marvelled' where Americans would write 'marveled'.