What's up with "silent letters"?

Silent letters are a waste of letters and complicate spelling and reading. I think english works and letters needs to be revised. More simplier spellings and phonetic spellings.

I don’t “know” what your talking about. :)

YES! like that… know, bah! verry good wine.

I’m gonna get a knife and shred this thread.

Some silent letters, like the “gh” in “knight,” used to be enunciated. Verbal language seems to shift faster than spelling does.

They are there so you know what a word means that sounds like another word.

like eating a pare/pair/pear.

The spelling dictates the meaning.

Silent letters are “unique”! (The ‘qu’ is silent and the ‘e’ sounds like a ‘k’).

There is a very entertaining and informative book about the mongrel history of the english language called “Mother Tongue” by Bill Bryson that explains a lot.

If psilent letters did knot exist, I would knot be allowed to taunt you when you make a flop in your pspelling.

I spell my last name with a 4. The 4 is silent.

@DrBill None of those (pare, pair, or pear) have silent letters?

@Grisson -

Actually I spell my last name with a 4 also, but my 4 is both silent and (drumroll, please!) invisible!

And yes, most of those extra letters used to be enunciated. Try listening to a reading of Chaucer in the original Old English and you will see what I am saying.

In some cases, the letters are left over from when we stole the word from another language but didn’t quite know what to do with it.

And then there is verbal shorthand such as British place and family names:

“Fanshaw” (Featherstonehaw)
“Lester” (Leicester)
“Chumley” (Chomendely)
“Tackleston” (Tacolneston)
“Hazebrugh” (Happisburgh)
“Trosley” (Trottiscliffe) and many, many more.

4 in japanese is pronounced shi, which is also the word for death. It is the most unlucky number in japan, like 13 here. You will never see a version four for any software imported from japan, or a camera, car, electronic device…

the next playstation will be a ps5 and americans will be like wtf is going on, where is 4?

Looks like I’ll have to get my name changed, then. I’m thinking maybe ‘13 of 11’.

What about Psalm? In French, they pronounce every letter haha.

@90s_kid Est-ce que c’est vrai? [eske seh vreh] They don’t even pronounce every word!

Nonono
I mean just In the word Psalm.
I can speak well french, and I would know.
Est-ce que sounds like one syllable haha.
(S-kuh)

Wow. I know this is old now but I just found it and had to announce my jealousy. Yesterday I was thinking of posting this exact same question.

Fluther’s becoming like the music industry. If you have an original idea, 20 other people already had the same one.

Kudos & lurve
lol

We should switch to spelling everything with an alphabet similar to the international phonetic alphabet (but perhaps a bit less complex. . . ).

Gnashville TN.