Few examples: ‘K’ letter in Knife, ‘G’ letter in Gnaw or ‘W’ letter in Write.

It is normal to wonder why we even use these letters then.

It is because of the progression of the English language and the combined influences from different languages, especially French and Latin. So, these adapted words end up causing confusions as they do not follow the grammar rules of the English language.

In this way, despite the fact that the spellings of these words continued as before, a few letters needed to remain silent to match to the actual English language rules.

Importance of Silent Letters in English

• They enable the person to recognize homophones be/bee, in/inn, know/no, knot/not, too/to/two, whole/hole.
• Magic ‘e’ – in the event that you include ‘e’ toward the ending of words with short vowel sound it stretches the sound – at/ate, hat/hate, cop/cope, mat/mate, tap/tape, rid/ride.
• Sometimes individuals may pronounce some letters or may not base on their pronunciation style or accent, for an instance, the ‘t’ in ‘often’ may or may not be pronounced.
• ‘H’ remains silent a considerable measure of accents. However, the ‘H’ letter remains silent in a few words with French origin–honest, hour, heir, honor, and herb (American).
• They demonstrate the history and origin of a particular word.

Listed below are a few examples of Silent Letters and how they are used:

• A –logically, Artistically, musically, stoically, romantically,
• B –crumb, climb, comb, doubt, debt, numb, plumb, tomb, thumb
• C –acquit, Acquire, victual, blackguard, muscle, czar, scissors,
• D –Wednesday, Handkerchief
• E –vegetable, Plaque, clothes, bridge. When ‘E’ is the ending of any word, it alters the pronunciation of that word but it remains silent in itself.
• F – Halfpenny
• G –alight, Align, champagne, though, gnash, diaphragm, gnaw, light, high, reign,
• H –exhaust, khaki, Choir, ghost, thyme, hour, heir,
• I – business
• J- N/A
• K –knead, know, Blackguard, knell, knife, knickers, knight, knot, knock,
• L –Calf, calm, chalk, folk, half, salmon, yolk, talk, psalm,
• M – Mnemonic
• N –chimney, Autumn, column, damn, solemn, condemn, hymn,
• O–opossum, Colonel,
• P –coup, Corps, receipt , pneumonia, psychology, pseudo, ptomaine,
• Q- N/A
• R –finger, Butter, garden, myrrh, here,
• S –apropos, Aisle, bourgeois, fracas, debris, isle, island,
• T –ballet, Asthma, castle, listen, gourmet, rapport, soften, ricochet, thistle
• U –colleague, Catalogue, dialogue, guest, guess, guide, guitar, guilt, tongue
• V- N/A
• W –write, Answer, whole, two, sword, wrist,
• X – Faux pas
• Y-N/A
• Z –rendezvous, laissez-faire

One approach to begin to like spellings and be better at this thing, is to appreciate words, to actually understand the spelling structures and to comprehend the history and origin of words, and this particularly is valid for learning silent letters in the English language.

The post Silent Letters – Usage & Rules in the English Language appeared first on Blogs | Engmates - English,Public Speaking,Personality Development.