I wonder if all the letters in the alphabet occur in silent form in the English language. I will start us off, and let’s see if dopers can fill in the remainder of the alphabet:
a: aesthetic
b: dumb
c: cnidaria
Let’s hope we can avoid words where the letter is silent only in certain dialects, for example “dentist” is not a good example of a silent “t”, even though some people pronounce it “dennist”.
d: adjudicate (The first ‘d’)
e: Dope
I’m looking for words pronounced the same way with or without the letter. Arguably, we can use the “e” from words ending in “ible” or “able”, e.g. “audible”.
Seems to be a meme out there for silent letters…:dubious:
http://www.antimoon.com/forum/2003/2967.htm
Silent a: musically, realistically, logically
Silent b: thumb, dumb, climb, debt, doubt, subtle
Silent c: indict, muscle, Tucson, Connecticut
Silent d: handkerchief, sandwich, handsome, Wednesday
Silent e: bridge, serve, clue, many many others
Silent f: halfpenny
Silent g: light, sign, diaphragm
Silent h: hour, honor, heir, exhaust, exhibition, Birmingham
Silent i: business
Silent k: knife, knock, know, knead
Silent l: walk, talk, salmon, almond, calm, yolk
Silent m: mnemonic
Silent n: autumn, solemn, condemn, column, hymn
Silent p: corps, pneumonia, coup, receipt, cupboard, clapboard, Campbell
Silent r: many in non-rhotic English
Silent s: island, aisle, viscount
Silent t: Christmas, whistle, castle, listen, soften, often, rapport, ballet
Silent u: guest, tongue, catalogue, guide, guitar
Silent w: sword, answer, two, write, whole, whore, Greenwich, Norwich
Silent z: rendezvous, chez, laissez-faire
still need J,O,Q,V,X,Y
This fails my test. Sign != sin.
Oesophagus (got to make use of my English background).
It seems to me these don’t count, since the OP specified the English language. In French, the Z affects the pronunciation of these words. Without them, you’d have words closer to “rend-voo”, “shh”, and “lays-faire.”
I have some all kinds of sites bookmarked in the “puzzle stuff” folder: silent letters.
ETA: And I’m gonna move this to the Game Room as being basically about wordplay. [/moderator activity]
Or Oedipus
Too
bayle should take care of y
Let me ask Ptolemy…
Several of the ones Jamicat posted are dialectical: I’d pronounce all of his As, all of his Ds except for “handkerchief”, all of his Ls except for “salmon”, all of the Rs (since my dialect is rhotic) and (barely) the W in “sword”, “whole”, and “whore”.
The French words for Z should count, though, since although they all came from French, they’ve all been assimilated into English (where the rules do not require a Z for those pronunciations)
Oh, and from twickster’s link, I wouldn’t count “handbag” for D; “blackguard” has two pronunciations, one of which pronounces the K; the first L in “colonel” is pronounced, just as a different sound than it usually has; and every example for F and R (and one of the ones for S) is a double letter, which I don’t think should count. It does add a pretty unambiguous “lacquer” for Q, though.
They don’t add any new letters to the list, but you can knock out a lot of letters at once with “boatswain” (pronounced “bosun”) or “Worchestershire” (pronounced “Wooster”).
Isn’t “Wooster” a shortened form of “Worcestershire”, the equivalent of saying “Worcester”? The whole word should be pronounce something similar to “Wooste(r)-sure” or “Wooste(r)-sheer.”
These words (rendezvous etc.) have entered the English language, so I wouldn’t rule them out for that reason. However, they do affect the pronunciation of the word, so I don’t think they count for that reason.
To and too are pronounced differently. “Too” has a much longer vowel sound, as one would expect from the double “o”.
We already have an A anyway. Although I do not pronounce any of the Ls, we at least have salmon uncontested so far. Ditto handkerchief for D. I have never heard anyone pronounce the W in sword etc., so I would be interested as to how it affects your pronunciation. I would also disqualify “two” as it is pronounced differently from “to”. However, “answer” seems to be uncontested.
I am not sure it is unambiguous. Would you really pronounce “lacuer” the same as “lacquer”?
No it isn’t; it is pronounced “Woostershuh” (and it should not have the first “h”). Worcester is pronounced Wooster, but I don’t want to go there - let’s keep proper nouns out of it before someone mentions Cholmondeley.
Do you pronounce “whole” and “whore” differently than “hole” and “hoar”? Do you pronounce “where” and “which” differently than “wear” and “witch”?