# Are there any unsilencable English letters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 11, 2005, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090 "2005-03-11T21:22:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/21 "2005-03-12T03:59:07Z")
v - vraic (pronounced “rack”. New Jersey for “seaweed”). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/22 "2005-03-12T04:04:40Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > v - vraic (pronounced “rack”. New Jersey for “seaweed”). :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/23 "2005-03-12T04:15:24Z")
Oops, I don’t know how that “new” got in there - I meant just “Jersey”, as in “Island of”: [http://www.thisisjersey.com/code/showarticle.pl?ArticleID=000462](http://www.thisisjersey.com/code/showarticle.pl?ArticleID=000462) ---
**Author:** ![hiebram](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hiebram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hiebram)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/24 "2005-03-12T05:14:55Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > :smack: > > grrrrrrrr. Don’t sweat it. It was an innocent faux pas. Otherwise, going off of **Blake** ’s list, I think we can add j - marijuana from the list in **Expano** ’s link, and that just leaves q and v unaccounted for. I realize Farles Wickens is supposed to have four m’s and a silent q, but I’d sleep better tonight with another example. And I don’t like Volkslied and Quay (from **Expano** ’s link) because the v and q are pronounced, and they wet their nests. Hiebram ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/25 "2005-03-12T06:36:23Z")
This page may be of interest: [silent letters](http://rec-puzzles.org/sol.pl/language/english/pronunciation/silent.letter) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/26 "2005-03-12T07:28:49Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > I want to ask for a change on C. Surely there are a lot of “sc” combinations pronounced as a single /s/ sound. But “disciple” to my ear has a double S sound in it: dihs-SIGH-pull. _Scientific_ analysis would quickly turn up another example, I think. To my ear, they both are single esses. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/27 "2005-03-12T07:33:18Z")
I didn’t see Expano’s link. And I thought I was so clever coming up with leopard. Farles Wickens was the best I could do on the spur of the moment but after a coupl’a hours thought I offer the revised list. I think these are the best of the combined lists. a - aisle b - comb c – indict d - ledger e- kite (I prefer this over forte because most people pronounce the final e as a long a) f - halfpenny g - drought h - honour i - heifer j - marijuana k - knife l - talk m - mnemonic n – damn o - leopard p- pneumonia q - racquet r – February s - isle t - hustle u - court v - navvy w - two x - prix y –bay z – rendezvous Navvy is probably a bit of a cheat because the double consonant changes the pronunciation from navy. Nonetheless one of the v’s isn’t pronounced. ---
**Author:** ![hammos1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@hammos1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hammos1)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/28 "2005-03-12T11:05:23Z")
How is the ‘e’ in ‘kite’ silent? Without the ‘e’ the word is pronounced differently. Perhaps ‘floe’? I don’t think the ‘d’ in ‘ledger’ can be called silent, particularly when you compare it with ‘legerdemain’. Better options for a silent ‘d’ are ‘djinn’ or ‘Djibouti’. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/29 "2005-03-12T11:44:36Z")
> [@](#): > > How is the ‘e’ in ‘kite’ silent? Without the ‘e’ the word is pronounced differently. By that standard you must also reject comb, indict, ledger, halfpenny, drought, talk, navvy, bay and rendezvous. All those words are or would be pronounced very differently if the silent letters were removed. A silent letter is not one that differentiates a word form a homophone. It is any letter that is not voiced. A person hearing the word kite spoken could not differentiate between it and ‘kyt’, hence the ‘e’ is indisputably silent. The same goes for your criticism of ledger. Once more you seem to be confusing a silent letter with a letter that differentiates a homophone. A simple test you may like to remember for future is whether a person unfamiliar with the word could guess the correct spelling upon hearing it using standard English spelling rules. It’s not perfect but it helps if you don’t understand what a silent letter is. For example the ‘b’ in comb is indisputably silent. A person could never guess the correct spelling from the spoken word. However the silent letter still changes the pronunciation radically and comb is not a homophone of com (the contraction of communications). As you can see a silent letter doesn’t have to make no difference to pronunciation as you seem to believe. Now I come to think of it in some English dialects the ‘d’ in ledger may well be voiced slightly so it may not be the best example. That slight voicing also applies to handsome, sandwich and Wednesday to varying degrees. I’ve noticed that many English, NZ and Australian dialects for example produce a slightly lengthened syllable where the supposedly silent letter is, so it becomes haannsome, Weennsday, haankercheif etc. However both djinn and Djibouti are foreign words and hardly seem applicable. Djibouti is a location and as such about as useful as many foreign or even British names with all sorts of silent letters. Djinn is perhaps on it’s way t becoming a borrow word but the common English form is still genie. I’d reject them for the same reason I’d reject chez in preference to rendezvous which really is a true part of English vocabulary. Not to mention that IIRC the correct pronunciations of both have the first ‘d’ voiced very slightly. I can’t think of any indisputably silent ‘d’ words although I suppose we could use the same trick we used with ‘v’ and just foe for a double letter. However the fact that the d is silent in many dialects puts ledger in the same category as the silent ‘r’ in February which is also pronounced in some dialects. ---
**Author:** ![hyjyljyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/0ea827/32.png) [@hyjyljyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hyjyljyj)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/30 "2005-03-12T14:09:45Z")
Silent Y is still on the table. The -ay in bay is a diphthong, which we haven’t been including in the list, and besides, the y-glide definitely changes the pronunciation of the long a, adding a very slight long e sound to it. IMO Wednesday contains a silent D to a much greater extent than February contains a silent R. When I was in grammar school, kids who tried to get away with saying “Febuary” or “libary” immediately had this lazy speech habit corrected…which is why I was shocked to see that no less an authority than Merriam Webster’s has listed “febuary” as an acceptable alternative pronunciation. But at least in the US where I live, one almost never hears newscasters or other professional speakers try to say the D, or the second E, in Wednesday. We were taught the vowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y. For silent W, someone cleverly contributed TWO–an instance of W as a silent vowel? There are, of course, myriad words starting with silent consonant W: wring, wrench, wren, wrack, wrought, wrangle, etc. But wait. If it’s silent, how do we know if the W is a consonant or a vowel? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/31 "2005-03-12T17:45:23Z")
I started with a list from Dmitri Borgmann’s 1967 book _Beyond Language_, which appears to be the source of the list in the link that **dtilque** gave. I modified it because I wanted words that were ordinary enough to be found in a college dictionary, and neither fivepence nor cinqcents qualified, along with some others. I readily admit that I fudged by using letters not pronounced as themselves rather than truly silent. So I can’t really complain about ‘navvy’ though I don’t like it much. Racquet is a good choice for the ‘q’. Forte has two meanings, a loud passage of music, in which the ‘e’ sound is pronounced, and a person’s strong suit, in which the ‘e’ sound is not properly pronounced, even though its mispronunciation is common today. Similarly, I really dislike February as a silent ‘r’ because the feb-u-ary pronunciation is just plain wrong. Forecastle is a better choice. Are there really any dialects that pronounce the ‘d’ in ledger? I can’t find any dictionary evidence of that. Or for the ‘d’ in Wednesday, either. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/32 "2005-03-12T18:50:59Z")
I was going to object to marijuana for silent j, but Merriam Webster has: > [@](#): > > Main Entry: mar·i·jua·na > Variant(s): also mar·i·hua·na /"mar-&-'wä-n& also -'hwä-/ > Function: noun > Etymology: Mexican Spanish mariguana, marihuana If it’s spelled marijuana, then properly the _j_ should be pronounced as _h_ (not be silent), as it is in Spanish. If it is spelled marihuana, then the proper pronunciation would be with a silent _h_, as in Spanish. I suppose it’s frequent enough in English to pronounce the word as mar-i-wha-na, regardless of whether it is spelled with a _j_ or an _h_, that the former case can be counted as a silent\* j\*. However, I still think this is a little suspect, since technically it’s incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/33 "2005-03-13T00:55:27Z")
See, this is where we are going to get into all sorts of trouble because of different dialects. I grant that in some US dialects they ‘y’ in ‘-ay’ sounds gives a slightly different pronunciation with a slight ‘e’ sound. However in most dialects that is not the case, hence the adjective of day becomes daily and Gaylene and Gailene are they same names. The same applies to February. Wrong or not, most dialects pronounce the word as Febuary with a blatantly silent ‘r’. I have yet to find a dictionary that doesn’t give that as one of the correct pronunciations. And yes, there are numerous British as well as Australian dialects that pronounce the ‘d’ in ledger and Wednesday slightly. You need too be familiar with the dialect to pick it up, but it results in an elongation of the preceeding syllable. Almost like ‘we’endsday or ‘le’ger’. The ‘d’ itself might not be fully voiced but it’s very hard to say. Just reading through the list I realise that I voice the silent ‘w’ in two, pronouncing the as ‘toow’ much as I pronounce ‘what’ as ‘hwat’. A lip reader would be able to easily distinguish my ‘two’ from my ‘too’. The same applied to marijuana where the ‘j’ is mostly silent even of technically incorrect and the converse for forte where the most common pronucniation is ‘fortay’ without a silent letter even if technically incorrect. I really don’t think we will ever construct a list where every letter is silent in every conceivable dialect. I think that realistically all we can hope for IMO is a list where the letter is silent in most dialects and where the silent pronunciation is confirmed by a dictionary. As for the claim that we haven’t been using dipthongs and so can’t use bay, if that’s the case we also have to reject aisle, heifer, talk, leopard, prix, and rendezvous since in all those cases the silent letters are dipthongs as well. In some cases the dipthong is uncommon (ai = ‘I’) while in other cases it invariant (terminal ez = ‘A’). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/34 "2005-03-13T08:29:11Z")
> [@hyjyljyj](#): > > IMO Wednesday contains a silent D to a much greater extent than February contains a silent R. When I was in grammar school, kids who tried to get away with saying “Febuary” or “libary” immediately had this lazy speech habit corrected…which is why I was shocked to see that no less an authority than Merriam Webster’s has listed “febuary” as an acceptable alternative pronunciation. _Alternative_ pronunciation? Where I’m from, and everywhere I’ve lived (Illinois, Missouri, and Minnesota), FEB-you-Ar-ee _is_ how that month is pronounced. You only voice the first ‘r’ if you have trouble spelling it otherwise. My dad from Chicago and my mom from western Montana say it the same way. I’ve never heard anyone say it differently. Anyway, in my dialect library doesn’t contain any silent letters. Wednesday does, though. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/35 "2005-03-13T17:49:41Z")
I know the OP asked for English silent letters, but I have a silent Q for you, in fact, I have a whole language full of silent Qs. The [Khmer syllabic alphabet](http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/khmer.pdf) (1MB .pdf in the link) doesn’t really have a Q sound, but it uses the equivalent of Q in any word that starts with a vowel. The Q is just a graphical dummy that holds the vowel marks. ---
**Author:** ![hyjyljyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/0ea827/32.png) [@hyjyljyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hyjyljyj)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/36 "2005-03-16T01:10:22Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > _Alternative_ pronunciation? Where I’m from, and everywhere I’ve lived (Illinois, Missouri, and Minnesota), FEB-you-Ar-ee _is_ how that month is pronounced. You only voice the first ‘r’ if you have trouble spelling it otherwise. > > My dad from Chicago and my mom from western Montana say it the same way. I’ve never heard anyone say it differently. > > Anyway, in my dialect library doesn’t contain any silent letters. Wednesday does, though. Coincidentally, I’m originally from St. Louis, on the border between Illinois and Missouri, and I’ve been to Chicago a number of times. Small country… As far as “You only voice the first ‘r’ if you have trouble spelling it otherwise” goes, no offense but this statement simply isn’t true as written. I have no trouble spelling the word, and I voice the first R–as does everyone in my family and everyone I grew up around. I happened to attend three different schools for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades, two private and one public, and all teachers were unified in their preference for pronouncing the word as spelled. I guess it depends on what gets taught as a youngster. That’s probably why it’s always grated on me to hear Don McLean sing American Pie and so clearly (mis)pronounce the month that made him shiver with every paper he’d deliver. Now that I know it’s an officially accepted variant, I’m officially OK with it. And I’d be more than willing to bet that if you listen carefully, you certainly do hear people say it with the r. I’ll tell you what it reminds me of: the word comfortable. I’ve HEARD people say KUM-fort-a-ble, the way it’s written, but I’ve never been able to keep from saying KUMF-ter-ble. Everyone I know does the same thing. I know the R comes before the T, I see it there, I spell it correctly. But it’s just not bloody _comfortable_ to say it that way. And what the hell do you know, I just looked it up in two versions of Webster’s, and in both the “wrong” pronunciation is listed FIRST! Apparently if enough people say a word a certain way, that’s the way to say it. Orthography be damned. I like it. And lastly as to silent C: that it took this long to come up with one is no indi_ **C** _tment of our collective creativity. ---
**Author:** ![quixotic78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3ab097/32.png) [@quixotic78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quixotic78)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/37 "2005-03-16T01:17:59Z")
Well, here’s my “Best of,” combining sites [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=304959), [here](http://rec-puzzles.org/sol.pl/language/english/pronunciation/silent.letter), and [here](http://volokhextra.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_volokhextra_archive.html#107410340884561780). I’ve only included somewhat “controversial” letters, since we can all agree that the p in psychology, the t in listen, etc. are silent. d – We_d_nesday f – fi_f_th j – I don’t think mari_j_uana is a good answer, because it’s more like a w than silent. Maybe Frey_j_a, as per [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=freyja)? q – The q in rac_q_uet seems to have a k sound that the c by itself doesn’t have. As The Volokh Conspiracy notes (see links above), if racquet/lacquer/etc count, why not dock for c and/or k? Also, I think **Expanso** ’s _q_uay is verboten because q clearly has a hard-c sound there. So I got nothin. r – Dossie_r_ v – I spent an hour this afternoon looking for a silent v, and couldn’t really come up with squat. **Expanso** wants Volkslied, but there the v is just an f, not silent. Ditto with Chekov etc., although there I think it’s a bit of a softer f. I’ve never heard of navvy, and besides, it’s a double letter, and therefore discounted as per the OP. Well, I guess the sum of my contribution is a bunch of complaints and a tentative suggestion of Freyja. Bah, I suck! ---
**Author:** ![quixotic78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3ab097/32.png) [@quixotic78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quixotic78)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/38 "2005-03-16T01:24:59Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Now I come to think of it in some English dialects the ‘d’ in ledger may well be voiced slightly so it may not be the best example. That slight voicing also applies to handsome, sandwich and Wednesday to varying degrees. I’ve noticed that many English, NZ and Australian dialects for example produce a slightly lengthened syllable where the supposedly silent letter is, so it becomes haannsome, Weennsday, haankercheif etc. Upon re-reading this paragraph, I’d like to replace my suggestion of Wednesday with handkerchief. I can only go with my Standard/Californian/Midwest American pronunciation as a guide, but I think I have the sliiiightest d in ledger. And when I say Wednesday, it’s almost like I’m saying the word Wendesday (i.e., I can slightly hear the word “Wend” in there, as opposed to just “Wen.”) But I don’t hear any sort of d in handkerchief. It’s the exact same sound to me as with the colloquial “hankerin’.” Hain-ker-chiff. (Forgive the rudimentary phoenetic rendering; I’m no linguist). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/39 "2005-03-16T01:40:46Z")
Two comments on the above. One. It’s just a game, folks, not a scientific exercise in phonetics. Two. If you want to get into phonetics you need to remember that just as each person has more than one vocabulary - reading, writing, understanding, speaking - each person has more than one pronunciation. Normal speech patterns tend to distort pronunciation in several ways. Accent or regional dialect is one, but just as powerful is the distinction between slowly and carefully pronouncing a word in isolation and quickly slurring it during speech. Elided sounds are common in standard speech. Added sounds are also common - think of ath-a-lete or orien-ta-ted. Give February or Athlete to a student in a test situation and the result would overwhelmingly be Feb-ru-ary and Ath-lete no matter that a dialectician would record them differently. The only solution I see is to pick a dictionary and use the pronunciations given. If the letter is absent, run with it. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2005, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090/40 "2005-03-16T01:58:57Z")
> [@](#): > > f - halfpenny With my Michigan accent, I clearly utter the F. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-unsilencable-english-letters/294090.md?page=3)