Not Working Out

Sorry but my "Periodic Lent" postings have not been working out - the time is too busy for me to get such things written. I do hope your Lent is being spent well, and perhaps in some future time I shall consider other meditations on the elements.

In order to give you at least a little diversion, I would like to present you with a bit of an oddity I have noted about English words.

There are some words with a "short i" which have corresponding words that have a "long i" but require fewer letters to spell:

willed - wild
chilled - child
milled - mild

My question is then why can't we have some other words like these?

dilled - dild (dialled)
filled - fild (filed)
pilled - pild (piled)
tilled - tild (tiled)
stilled - stild (styled)

Of course if you do happen to answer this one, you may see how far you get with that perennial favourite:

If the plural of mouse is mice, shouldn't the plural of house be hice?

Hee hee!