The double consonant has only one purpose. It is there to warn the reader that the preceding vowel is a short one and that the accent, or stress, is on that vowel.  The best example is dine, dinner. Without that doubled consonant, N, we would have diner, in which the vowel I has a long sound and has a different meaning. The diner is the person who eats the dinner. Another example is hop, hopping. Without the double consonant, P, we would have hoping, which is the progressive form of the verb hope. For example: I hope, or I am hoping…that I will someday see a hopping rabbit. (Got that?) 
 
This rule, or guideline, was very useful in the days when most adults were barely literate, and it is still a useful guide for words that end in the silent E. For example, fate and fat. Is it fated or fatted? Was the “fatted calf” in the Book of Luke fated to be eaten? If you go off your diet, do you get fater or fatter? How about cut and cute? Do we write, “She is cuter” or “she is cutter”? Do we tell someone to “use the paper cuter” or “use the paper cutter”?
 
Unfortunately, many ancient scribes, typesetters, and dictionary makers too often either used a double consonant where it was not needed or failed to double the consonant when it was needed. As a result, today the number of words that break the rule is about equal to the number that follow the rule. This is a ridiculous problem for you and me and especially for students.
 
Take the word necessary. Does that double S follow the stressed vowel? No, it doesn’t.
 
How about these words? Paraffin. Accuse. Illusion. Immediate. Connect. Surrender. Assist. Attract. English gives us hundreds more words like these that seem not to follow any rule.
 
So what can be done about it? Since there is no absolute law that covers English spelling and no academy or committee (note the two double consonants) that govern English spelling, do not hesitate to drop an obviously unnecesary consonant when you are writing informally (as I just dropped the superfluous S). But do this only in very informal writing or maybe when you are texting. And be sure to keep your dictionary handy when you are writing something important, such as a term paper or an aplication (application) for a job!

If you are not clear about the difference between “lay” and “lie,” it’s helpful to remember that “chickens lay, people lie.” 
 
Let me explain. First, there is no confusion when you mean to say something that is not true,” such as “he told a lie.” So forget about that.
 
When chickens lay their eggs, they place something somewhere. “They will lay their eggs in the boxes.” So when we place something in a position, usually horizontally, we lay it. For example, “we lay the table.” “The soldiers laid down their arms.” “We will lay the body in the coffin.” “Please lay a drop cloth on the floor before you paint.” “Lay” is what’s called a transitive verb where the subject of the sentence does something (the action of the verb) to an object. For example, “I’m going to lay the baby on the blanket”
 
Lie is what’s called an intransitive verb. It doesn’t take a direct object. “I’m going to lie down.” “The island lies in the middle of the lake.” “The baby lies quietly sleeping.” “Papa is lying in the hammock.” Confusion can come with the past tense: “The weapon lay on the floor”.
 
The confusion probably arises because these verbs share “lay.” “Lay” is the present tense of the transitive verb “lay” and is also the past tense of the intransitive verb “lie.” When in doubt ask yourself, “Lay what?” or “Lie where?”
 
Have fun.

When I was a small boy I wondered about the silent ‘d’ in wednesday. I thought it was one of those letters that well educated people pronounce. Rather like the ‘r’ in February. I could handle ‘feb-roo-ary’ quite well but could never manage ‘wed-nes-day’. I was told that it came from the German ‘Woden’s Day’ which matched up with “Thor’s Day’. That sounded right but when I spent a summer hitch hiking around Europe I found the Germans called them ‘Mittwoch’ and ‘Donnerstag’.

I have traveled widely in numerous English speaking countries and nowhere have I heard anybody pronounce that ‘d’. Today, countless millions of people all around the world are stuck with an extremely popular word that is disfigured by a useless and often confusing silent letter.

I suggest we drop it. Wensday, instead of Wednesday would do no damage to our linguistic heritage or affect our literary past. It would not produce another homograph or homophone or even a heteronym. It would make the phonics people happy and it would be accepted immediately by almost everybody. It would also bring a sigh of relief from countless schoolboys and foreign students world wide.

The next time you have to write that day of the week, spell it wensday and see what happens. I’ll make a good guess that most people will not notice and the few that do will agree with you that wensday is more aesthetically pleasing than wednesday.