User:Soap/silent
- See also: User:Soap/insert
Consonants edit
I initially wrote this list from memory, and then went looking for other lists of silent letters. This is the last diff that contains only the words I came up with on my own.
B edit
C edit
- indict
- Arctic
- Connecticut (middle c)
- cnidocyst
- Mackinac
CH edit
D edit
- ceilidh and other Gaelic loans
- Cholmondeley
- and (unstressed)
- handkerchief, sandwich, Wednesday
- adjust and other similar words before a stressed syllable. Other lists also have words like judge, which I would argue are not good examples because dg is functioning as a double consonant here, showing us that the vowel is short
Despite an abundance of silent d in French, I can't think of a single example in English apart from surnames like Michaud.
F edit
- halfpenny
- face can become hace in military contexts; see below under M. Possibly from the need to be heard in a noisy environment
- Possibly clef for some speakers
- fifth for some speakers
G edit
GH edit
This is silent more often than not, but I'll give shillelagh as a more exotic example
H edit
J edit
- marijuana and similar Spanish names like Joaquin, Juan, and Tijuana
K edit
- know, knife, and any other word with initial kn- (but see talk:knive)
L edit
- could. Most other words with silent L have at least some speakers who pronounce it, but could etymologically never had an /l/
LL edit
- paella, because the e already ends in a /j/ sound in most dialects of English
M edit
- In military contexts, march is sometimes pronounced harch and since face can also become hace it could be said that the /h/ here is not a substitution but a re-insertion after deletion of the initial consonant. However, the h- spelling is used in these contexts.
N edit
P edit
- receipt
- raspberry, cupboard
- pneumonic, psyche, pterosaur, and all other words with these initial clusters
- comptroller
- Happisburgh, a town near the Haisborough Sands in southeastern England
- it's usually silent in a swimming pool
PH edit
Q edit
I was not able to think of any words with silent q not followed by u, and most of them words like lacquer where it's more reasonable to argue that the c or some other letter is silent.
QU edit
- Colquhoun, however, retains the pronunciation one would expect if it were spelled Colhoun at least outside Scotland
R edit
The words below assume a rhotic dialect, meaning that their R's are silent even for people who normally pronounce every R.
- forecastle
- Worcester. Only the first /r/ is silent in rhotic dialects, including the dialect of Worcester, Massachusetts
- Mrs, where the r is etymologically from mistress
- allegedly hackamore
- For some speakers, apparently surprise, February, and comfortable.
- possibly sorghum in older American speech
S edit
T edit
- ten-hut arose from a military use of the word attention, similar to harch and hace above.
TH edit
- McGrath
- north and south in some contexts at sea (the source of the word noreaster), possibly due to the need to be heard in a noisy environment
- asthma
- clothes, and for some speakers also words like baths and truths
- attaboy / attagirl may have arisen in the same way as the military words above
V edit
- fivepence, an obsolete pronunciation, but one that might well be still in use if its original currency was
- it's never, ever, over. These words are usually spelled with apostrophes when the /v/ is silent but people certainly still do it when speaking quickly
- Averham, Nottinghamshire, England
- Leveson-Gower, where the v spelling seems to be stylistic, as the name never had a /v/
W edit
- boatswain
- wrap and all other words with initial wr-. There are a few archaic words with wl-, like wlatsome, still listed in dictionaries, but we classify this word and probably all others with wl- as Middle English.
- sword, two. Possibly the only position in which a consonant other than h is silent before a stressed vowel. (Or before any vowel, if we analyse boatswain, listen, and others like it as ending in syllabic consonants.) The word swoop also had silent w historically.
- toward
- answer
- Towle (a surname); other examples exist, even words as simple as awl, but one could argue that the reduced word al would have a different vowel and so a word is needed where a redundant final -e is also present
- Many British towns ending in -wick; traditionally also a few outside Britain
X edit
Y edit
See also below under vowels.
- maypop. I choose this word because there is also macock, whose vowels are pronounced the same. Therefore the y is not necessary and can be considered silent. There are probably other words, but for example may cannot drop its y to become ma.
- yod-dropping dialects may omit the sound in foreign loanwords like Katyusha.
- Kyiv
Z edit
Vowels edit
In this section, the vowels are organized by letters, not by phonemes, because it is often impossible to decide what the original phoneme was or should have been.
A edit
- graham.
- Arguably in words like cleave, since the final -e already indicates a long vowel. It is sometimes said that a preceding /v/ negates this rule, but Rhymes:English/ɛv shows no words with ea.
- encyclopaedia, because although there is an alternate spelling with just an -e-, the vowel remains the same. The same is true of paediatrician formed from the same root; however, in many cases, classical words with -ae- have alternate forms in -e- where the pronunciation changes.
E edit
Finding silent E in English is trivial, but I will try to find examples that defy the well-known silent E rule and do not fit into its well-known exceptions, such as following v.
I edit
O edit
- Taliaferro
- leopard, people
- oenophile and many other classical borrowings with oe; some have alternate spellings with e that have a short vowel, however I suspect enophile, for which we have no pronunciation listed, retains its /i:/
- iron and (for some people) irony, unless we call this metathesis
U edit
- plaque
- liquor, since one would normally expect a /w/ sound here
- buy, build, buoy. At least the last once had a pronounced /w/ sound. This could arguably also provide a silent /o/ for the speakers who say /ˈbu.i/ or monosyllabic /ˈbui/ (not listed here, but this is my own pronunciation, making it a rhymeless word).
- Lady Dimitrescu