English words with silent letters

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Parallel to the double letter thread I’d like to start one about silent letters. A late colleague of mine once told me that he had examples of each letter of the alphabet being silent in some word with the sole exception of v. Which is interesting because at least one word I can think of in which the v did go silent it was dropped from the spelling: over → o’er poetically. Unfortunately, I never thought to ask for the list. Some are obvious; others less so. I will give a partial list below.

a boat
b subtle, debt
c any ck word like back would be the same as bak
d Wednesday
e too many to cite
f ?
g again too many
h similarly. Bought will do for both
i raison
j ?
k knife
l salmon
m ?
n ?
o ?
p ?
q ?
r February (first r)
s ?
t equation
u vacuum (which I pronounce vacume)
v ?
w ?
x ?
y ?
z ?

Have at it, dopers.

2

Q=Queue
You’re actually pronouncing only the first letter.
:flees:

3

This was a conversation I had when the whole “covfefe” incident happened. Is the ‘v’ silent? Is the first ‘f’ silent? We ended up finding other words where every other letter was silent, except ‘v’ and ‘f’.

Here’s a couple I remember offhand,

‘j’ marijuana

‘p’ pterodactyl

‘s’ aisle

‘z’ rendezvous.

~Max

4

Did you mean “raisin”? I don’t think “raison” is English.

I think some people pronounce that first r and some don’t.

I don’t like this example. The t may not have a standard t sound, but it certainly isn’t silent: there’s some consonant between the ua and the io.

Is it cheating to use a word with a double letter and count one of them as silent? It seems so to me; but if it’s not, you could find plenty of tt words you could count for a silent t.

How about “know,” which works for k and w simultaneously?
Or “growth”?

5

Is the m in mnemonic silent? I pronounce it without the m but I don’t know if that’s correct.

6

Depot for ‘t’.

Another one for ‘s’ and ‘p’ is corps.

~Max

7

Much of this is arguable at best. I’m not going to go through the list one by one but -

  • I think it’s more than a little dubious to say a letter is silent because it is part of a dipthong eg I can think of no accents where boat and bot sound the same. The a isn’t silent - it’s part of a dipthong

  • many of the others are regional. The d is still discernable in “wednesday” for many English speakers. Same with the r in february.

8

Yes, of course I meant raisin.

9

Another dipthong. Rasin is not pronounced the same as raisin.

10

Huh. I just looked in the delightful P is for Pterodactyl to see what they had for V. Their text is “V is for Five: How Roman-tic!” So they may agree that there aren’t silent V’s in English.

It’s a really fun source for silent letters, especially silent initial letters.

11

Sword for ‘w’ maybe? I’m not seeing how it’d sound any different from sord without it.

12

As for w, I’m sure you can write a word that has a silent w without spelling it wrong.

13

I’m inclined to agree; but would you accept “lead” (the metallic element) as having a silent a?

14

For Q, how about “lacquer”? For s, how about “hors d’oeuvre”? For z, how about rendezvous?

French is super-helpful here.

15

And ptarmigan too
In one of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin books, Jack Aubrey, intending to refer to his mother-in-law a termagant, says she’s a ptarmigan.

16

If you just want an answer without the game, Merriam Webster is here for you. And yes: “V” is never silent.

17

We’ve had this thread before, where the rule was that the word would have to be pronounced the same if the letter were removed. Off the top of my head, we used “roux” for X (“chapeaux” and “chateaux” were also mentioned, but they’re just French words for things we have perfectly good words for in English, but there’s no other word for “roux”).

18

n hymn
o opossum

19

B for bdellium.

20

The Barenaked Ladies have a song for this, “Crazy ABC’s”.

Hey Steve!
Hey Ed, that sounds nice, what is it?
Thank you, it’s an alphabet song I’m working on
Oh great, a whole new alphabet,
I just learned the old one.

A is for aisle
B is for bdellium
C is for czar
And if you see him, would you mind telling him

OK, hang on a second, yeah aisle?
Yeah, aisle like a, like a theatre.
Alright, OK, and bdellium?
Bdellium, it’s a gum like tree resin, it starts with a silent B
And then czar?
Yeah, it’s uh- like a Russian czar.
You know, everyone knows apple ball and cat,
I wanted to get into some you know,
Some stranger words.
Right, I see what you’re doing.

D is for djinn
E for Euphrates
F is for fohn, but not like when I call the ladies

I thought phone started with a “p”…like a “ph”
No its f-o-h-n, it’s a kind of wind
Yeah, I know what you mean by wind

G for Gnarly,
I for irk
H is for hour
J for jalapeño
Good in either corn or flour (tortillas)
Nice rhyme
K is for knick-knack
L is for llama
Pramma, llama, ding

What’s so strange about llama?
Llama, its starts with two L’s
What’s the second one for?
No idea.
I know, loser.

M for mnemonic
N is for ngomo
O is for ouija board
P for pneumonia, pterodactyl and psychosis
Q is for qat

OK, Q, qat? What?
Yeah it’s uh…q-a-t,
It’s an evergreen shrub
It’s a perfect scrabble word because it’s a q with no u,
There’s not many of those
You have too much time on your hands.

R is for R-gyle
No, it isn’t

OK, you’re right; I couldn’t find a good “r” word

S is for Saar, a lovely German river
T for tsunami, a wave that makes me quiver
U is for urn, but not like earning money
V for vraisemblance from French,
And therefore kind of funny
W for wren, wrinkly, and who.
X is for Xian, an ancient Chinese city, true!

Ancient Chinese city, huh?
My guitar player, some hotshot.

Y is for yperite, a very nasty gas.
And zed’s the final letter
And by final, I mean last.

OK, when you say zed,
For the benefit of our American friends
You really mean Z, right?
No I mean Zed, like, like Zed Zed Top.
Zed Zed Top?
Yeah, you know the guys with the big long beards,
Well, except the guy whose name is Beard,
He has a mustache
I always thought that was interesting
You done with the alphabet?
No extra letters I haven’t heard of?
I think so.
Well this was a great help, I think, you know,
The contribution you made to world literacy
Well, I’m just saying, kids
I’m just saying
Think outside the box a little bit
Box with an “r”
Yeah, well, no, box with a b-a-l-k-s, like a pitcher.
Ahh, as opposed to b-a-c-h-s,
Right, think outside the “balks”