Words that start with silent letters?
A few years ago I was with a group of people and we were talking about how, when you have to spell your name over the phone, it’s common to say words instead of just letters – i.e. “D like Daniel, A like apple, V like victor…” etc. We thought it would be funny if it were possible to spell out your name but use letters that were silent in the pronunciation “K like knife,” “G like gnat” “P like pterodactyl” etc. I wasn’t able to think of too many examples but figured this was a perfect question to turn over to the collective. Besides those two examples, what other letters appear silently at the start of a word?
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@occ; wonderful question. Another way to keep me up tonight.
I am wracked with anxiety about this question, which I am trying to wrestle to the ground.
(w like….)
Aardvark. The first a is silent.
wrench, writ, wreck, all the pn words (pneumonia, etc)
Opossum- most pronounce it “possum”
Actually, it is pronounced
oh-possum. Possum is just slang for opossum. An actual possum is a different marsupial from the southern hemisphere.
HEIR: H as in -, e as in air, so on and so forth!
Herb, or herbivore. Hour, too.
What about Colonel. I still don’t get how this word got the spelling it did!
True, but it sound completely different than the spelling.
…but that doesn’t have an F in it…
you would be correct, but it sounds like it would.
so maybe I should have said
P like
P in Pseudo or Pseudonym
W in Wrath or Wreath
Rich is smart! Lurve!
I had friends that named their son Pthomas. I love that!
Astrochuck, why do you say herb and herbivore? Do you not pronounce the “h” in those words?
I don’t either. A lot of Americans don’t.
Wow, I never knew that. That seems very strange to me!
…except if it’s a first or last name, then we say it, go figure.
@babygalll – that’s nothing to how you pronounce the name of the Dutch city “Gorinchem” :)
Is anybody going to turn this in an alphabetic list? It’s an excellent question :)
I wanted to of course mention gnome, previously mentioned.
How about kneel?
@vincentt…or the Dutch town of Gouda. Bet most Americans don’t realize that they are creaming the name of that yummy cheese. I say it for fun when I ask for it and the clerk has no idea.
tsetse fly
(depending, didn’t realize there were so many alternative ways to pronounce it. I say set-see.)
Found a name that ends in a silent number.
@Seesul – hehe, but there are plenty of those. However, tell a Dutch person to pronounce Gouda and he’ll manage. Ask a Dutch person who’s never heard of Gorinchem to pronounce that, however… ^.^
and E as in euphonius, euphoric and the plant, Euphorbia.(Thank you, Robmandu, for the help.)
These are caused by the classical Greek use of diphthongs…encyclop*ae* dia is an example.
Actually the E isn’t silent. Eu is a diphthong and makes the Yoo sound. Without the E it would sound like
“ooforic”
@Astro; Eu are right, but the words fit the description of the question, don’t they?
Viz: “E” as in euphemism?
I don’t see how. It’s not pronounced oofemism.
I’m getting punch drunk so will have to think about that in the AM. What about the parallel: you don’t say g as in gunat?
Knicker…which are women’s panties.
Then let’s not forget knockers!
knick knack ( paddy whack give the dog a bone)
Knackered, knight, ptarmigan (bird),Ptolemy, ptomaine;
I would eliminate tse tse since the proferred pronunciation runs the t and s together in a way that I can say but not type phonetically. (“t” plus a hiss?
How funny, I was trying to put LLoyd and Llewyellyn llast night, but my iPhone was acting llousy. (yes, I know, names, not words per se).
Everyone listen to “Crazy ABC” by Barenaked Ladies. Its on their album “Snacktime”.
It’s the alphabet song with every letter begining with a silent. Such as,
A is For Aisle or
B is for Bdellium,
C is fro Czar and
D is for Djinn. I could go on
Technically, ai is a diphthong. Phonetically, when the a and i are together it makes the long i sound.
Sometimes I’m an ass and just feel like being a buzzkill.
People who still know what a diphthong is are a rare, wonderful and perhaps dying breed. Personally, I find it sexy.
And “burseraceous plants”? Another household word(s
Aardvark and llama, it doesn’t have the irony which the question asked to include. However you could say A as in “aikido”
To add to that my first thought was xylophone but it that that sound an x makes?
@bstyaltykildacat: Try xerox, Xerxes, aloud. There are subtle differences. zylophone, szerkser, zerox. It is the fault of the Greek alphabet which has Chi, Psi, Ksi, Phi – there is a subtle difference in the amount of psaliva xsprayed.
@bstyaltykildacat – actually, you do pronounce the first letter of aardvark. It has Dutch origins, and “Aa” is a different sound than “a”.
Also, I’d swear you also pronounce the first l in llama, even though not as clearly as the second one. Though that might also be because I just pronounce the world separately with more emphasis on the double l, perhaps if I’d use it in a sentence it’d be different.
Actually, llama is really pronounced “yama” as the double L is pronounced as it is in tortilla.
< < llurves (say “yurves”) AstroChuck. And tortillas.
It’s the silent letters you’ve got to look out for. The loud ones are usually all talk.
@AC: Check out the wonderful song, Silent E.
Tom Lehrer wrote this for The Electric Company in 1971. The song endures; as does The LY one.
He even includes Dracula in the latter.
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| asked June 3rd, 2008
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