Silent letters...

[LoganGrimnar]

Bah.. what is the point of a letter if its silent... why not just take the letter out all togeather! I think i should have my name changed... aill add like 6 random letters and tell people its silent.. Mqiqcqhqaqeql... buts the Qs are silent. yea.. now to get my named changed.

[ZeroVega]

In my experiance, scilent letters usually come with a rule and a purpose. Sure the letter P in psychic is scilent, but there's a reason... oh yeah... there's a reason...

[miltonyorkcastle]

the question is, is the reason a good reason?  a logical reason?  a useful reason?

[Red Monkey]

A fuuuuun reason?

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

The reasons have to do with the way the particular syllable is pronounced. Why do we have "ch" for the hard sound in chalk? Because we don't have a single character that does it. What's the difference between psion scion? Well, verbally, psion is two distinct syllables, while scion is only one. Also, you have to remember how the written language has evolved... Signifying a bazillion different sounds with a limited number of characters has led to some interesting combinations to represent certain things.

I'll stop now, so I don't write a full dissertation. Linguistic Anthropology... Ah, my least useful hobby.

[Red Monkey]

And yet...
  Do we say Tom? Noooo Tomb
  Do we say Boom? Nooooo Bomb
  Do we say Com? Nooooo Comb
  We drive on parkways and park on driveways...
  We keep small dogs in handbags...we consider movie stars as royalty to be emulated.
    We are the ugly Americans....! Our language is the hardest to learn! *Do not count dead langs...don't you dare!*
  (This statement paid for by the Society for Habitual Mumblers)

[Doc-Holiday]

ugly?

[lonnarin]

well, there are those "silent" letter which change inflection and pronounciation, like the U in queen or the h in ghost (otherwise it'd sound like Gost as in lost)... those are silent letters  THEY have a purpose. Such is also the case when the silent letters effect the prounounciation of the rest of the word, ie: tomb and comb

homonymn though...  would be just the same pronounciation as homonym.  in this case the n in the word is actually a "dummy" letter, one which is added to the spelling of a word which does not alter pronounciation in any way.  

Some do serve a purpose though in spelling different versions of the world. ie: damn -> damnation.  in these cases, the letter is pronounced in longer versions of the word, and are kept in the original form to serve as bridge between the two.  Whenever it bridges different forms of the word, the dummy letter is classified as an "inert letter"

Then in words like the above example of homonymn, or the s in island, they bear absolutely no relation to the other letters in the word.  These dummy letters are called "empty letters".  Usually they are carry-overs from the root word form another language.  example: bomb

Other forms, like the p in phone which drastically change the pronounciation of the phenome are called "Auxilliary letters"  They are usually too carried over from other languages.  Post-modern substitutions though like phat, a different meaning than fat, are just illiterate tomfoolery.  Likely there was some english dropout who was overweight and picked on for it who still thought he was cool, who butchered the word into a new one and felt overly proud of himself for doing so.

English has a whole lot of the vocabulary stemming from germanic and latin, two drastically different linguistic styles, so a lot of confusing word forms are the result.

[Dorax Windsmith]

Thanks for the lesson! *Yells to all his friends* "class is officially in session"

[LoganGrimnar]

lonnarin - 12/8/2005  5:30 PM

well, there are those "silent" letter which change inflection and pronounciation, like the U in queen or the h in ghost (otherwise it'd sound like Gost as in lost)... those are silent letters  THEY have a purpose. Such is also the case when the silent letters effect the prounounciation of the rest of the word, ie: tomb and comb

homonymn though...  would be just the same pronounciation as homonym.  in this case the n in the word is actually a "dummy" letter, one which is added to the spelling of a word which does not alter pronounciation in any way.  

Some do serve a purpose though in spelling different versions of the world. ie: damn -> damnation.  in these cases, the letter is pronounced in longer versions of the word, and are kept in the original form to serve as bridge between the two.  Whenever it bridges different forms of the word, the dummy letter is classified as an "inert letter"

Then in words like the above example of homonymn, or the s in island, they bear absolutely no relation to the other letters in the word.  These dummy letters are called "empty letters".  Usually they are carry-overs from the root word form another language.  example: bomb

Other forms, like the p in phone which drastically change the pronounciation of the phenome are called "Auxilliary letters"  They are usually too carried over from other languages.  Post-modern substitutions though like phat, a different meaning than fat, are just illiterate tomfoolery.  Likely there was some english dropout who was overweight and picked on for it who still thought he was cool, who butchered the word into a new one and felt overly proud of himself for doing so.

English has a whole lot of the vocabulary stemming from germanic and latin, two drastically different linguistic styles, so a lot of confusing word forms are the result.

..well of course... why dident i think of that.

[Talan Va'lash]

Red Monkey - 12/8/2005  2:57 PM

We keep small dogs in handbags...

... what?!

-TV

[Zhofe]

Silent letters require telegraph messengers too be mimes. *nods*

[Wintersheart]

lonnarin - 12/9/2005  2:30 AM
homonymn though...  would be just the same pronounciation as homonym.  in this case the n in the word is actually a "dummy" letter, one which is added to the spelling of a word which does not alter pronounciation in any way.  

Aye, even a humble dummy letter can serve a purpose. In many non indu-european languages they signal to the reader how words should be read or to break spelling and pronounciation rules for exceptions (which is often the case with loan words where rules of pronounciation and/or spelling are different).

In all these cases they carry information to the reader.

*hides in case Meizter reads it* You can consider silent letters the bards of spelling. They might not do much on their own, but they tell the reader of the other letters.