User:Soap/silent


 * See also: User:Soap/insert

Consonants
I initially wrote this list from memory, and then went looking for other lists of silent letters. This is the last diff that contains only the words I came up with on my own.

B

 * debt
 * thumb, climb

C

 * indict
 * Arctic
 * Connecticut (middle c)
 * cnidocyst
 * Mackinac

CH

 * yacht
 * Connacht
 * drachm

D

 * ceilidh and other Gaelic loans
 * Cholmondeley
 * and (unstressed)
 * handkerchief, sandwich, Wednesday
 * adjust and other similar words before a stressed syllable. Other lists also have words like judge, which I would argue are not good examples because dg is functioning as a double consonant here, showing us that the vowel is short

Despite an abundance of silent d in French, I can't think of a single example in English apart from surnames like Michaud.

F

 * halfpenny
 * face can become hace in military contexts; see below under M. Possibly from the need to be heard in a noisy environment
 * Possibly clef for some speakers
 * fifth for some speakers

G

 * reign
 * phlegm
 * gnome

GH
This is silent more often than not, but I'll give shillelagh as a more exotic example

H

 * honor

J

 * marijuana and similar Spanish names like Joaquin, Juan, and Tijuana

K

 * know, knife, and any other word with initial kn- (but see talk:knive)

L

 * could. Most other words with silent L have at least some speakers who pronounce it, but could etymologically never had an /l/

LL

 * paella, because the e already ends in a /j/ sound in most dialects of English

M

 * Wymondham
 * mnemonic
 * comptroller
 * In military contexts, march is sometimes pronounced harch and since face can also become hace it could be said that the /h/ here is not a substitution but a re-insertion after deletion of the initial consonant. However, the h- spelling is used in these contexts.

N

 * damn

P

 * receipt
 * raspberry, cupboard
 * pneumonic, psyche, pterosaur, and all other words with these initial clusters
 * comptroller
 * Happisburgh, a town near the Haisborough Sands in southeastern England
 * it's usually silent in a swimming pool

PH

 * phthisis, phenolphthalein

Q
I was not able to think of any words with silent q not followed by u, and most of them words like lacquer where it's more reasonable to argue that the c or some other letter is silent.

QU

 * Colquhoun, however, retains the pronunciation one would expect if it were spelled Colhoun at least outside Scotland

R
The words below assume a rhotic dialect, meaning that their R's are silent even for people who normally pronounce every R.
 * forecastle
 * Worcester. Only the first /r/ is silent in rhotic dialects, including the dialect of Worcester, Massachusetts
 * Mrs, where the r is etymologically from mistress
 * allegedly hackamore
 * For some speakers, apparently surprise, February, and comfortable.
 * possibly sorghum in older American speech

S

 * island
 * isle (not cognate to the above) and many French loans

T

 * listen
 * soften
 * tarot and again many French loans
 * boatswain, another nautical word


 * ten-hut arose from a military use of the word attention, similar to harch and hace above.

TH

 * McGrath
 * north and south in some contexts at sea (the source of the word noreaster), possibly due to the need to be heard in a noisy environment
 * asthma
 * clothes, and for some speakers also words like baths and truths
 * attaboy / attagirl may have arisen in the same way as the military words above

V

 * fivepence, an obsolete pronunciation, but one that might well be still in use if its original currency was
 * it's never, ever, over. These words are usually spelled with apostrophes when the /v/ is silent but people certainly still do it when speaking quickly
 * Averham, Nottinghamshire, England
 * Leveson-Gower, where the v spelling seems to be stylistic, as the name never had a /v/

W

 * boatswain
 * wrap and all other words with initial wr-. There are a few archaic words with wl-, like wlatsome, still listed in dictionaries, but we classify this word and probably all others with wl- as Middle English.
 * sword, two. Possibly the only position in which a consonant other than h is silent before a stressed vowel. (Or before any vowel, if we analyse boatswain, listen, and others like it as ending in syllabic consonants.) The word swoop also had silent w historically.
 * toward
 * answer
 * Towle (a surname); other examples exist, even words as simple as awl, but one could argue that the reduced word al would have a different vowel and so a word is needed where a redundant final -e is also present
 * Many British towns ending in -wick; traditionally also a few outside Britain

X

 * prix

Y
See also below under vowels.
 * maypop. I choose this word because there is also macock, whose vowels are pronounced the same. Therefore the y is not necessary and can be considered silent. There are probably other words, but for example may cannot drop its y to become ma.
 * yod-dropping dialects may omit the sound in foreign loanwords like Katyusha.
 * Kyiv

Z

 * chez

Vowels
In this section, the vowels are organized by letters, not by phonemes, because it is often impossible to decide what the original phoneme was or should have been.

A

 * graham.
 * Arguably in words like cleave, since the final -e already indicates a long vowel. It is sometimes said that a preceding /v/ negates this rule, but Rhymes:English/ɛv shows no words with ea.
 * encyclopaedia, because although there is an alternate spelling with just an -e-, the vowel remains the same. The same is true of paediatrician formed from the same root; however, in many cases, classical words with -ae- have alternate forms in -e- where the pronunciation changes.

E
Finding silent E in English is trivial, but I will try to find examples that defy the well-known silent E rule and do not fit into its well-known exceptions, such as following v.
 * forbade

I

 * business

O

 * Taliaferro
 * leopard, people
 * oenophile and many other classical borrowings with oe; some have alternate spellings with e that have a short vowel, however I suspect enophile, for which we have no pronunciation listed, retains its /i:/
 * iron and irony, unless we call this metathesis

U

 * plaque
 * liquor, since one would normally expect a /w/ sound here
 * buy, build, buoy. At least the last once had a pronounced /w/ sound. This could arguably also provide a silent /o/ for the speakers who say /ˈbu.i/ or monosyllabic /ˈbui/ (not listed here, but this is my own pronunciation, making it a rhymeless word).
 * Lady Dimitrescu

Y

 * Pepys. Y can only be a vowel in this position, so I list it both here and under consonants.
 * Wemyss