![]() Here’s a bit of Antony and Cleopatra from 1607, act 4 scene 3: In fact, ‘list’ could be used as a shortened form of the word, very common in Shakespeare’s England and before. This letter would have been sounded in many regional Englishes, but during the English Vowel Shift which took place from the late 1400s on, these regional anomalies were softened up. Here’s a few more: hustle, jostle, apostle, bristle, thistle or wrestle.įinally, an interesting fact. Instead the ‘t’ becomes a little like another, slightly shorter ‘s’: listen becomes ‘lissen’ whistle is ‘whissle’ etc. The ‘t’ – ‘tuh’ sound – is one of the most recognisable and strong sounds in the English language – yet in the middle of ‘listen’, it disappears! The silent t: A whistle! Listen!Īh the confusing silent ‘t’. The ‘n’ is silenced, within the mouth, but it makes these words subtly longer than if they just ended in ‘m’: hymn, damn, solemn, condemn or column. Not dissimilar to the silent b, the silent n usually appears after an ‘m’ and is not pronounced ‘nuh’ as an ‘n’ normally is, but simply functions to soften the words final vowel sound a little. Here are some key examples: climb, comb, crumb, debt, thumb, tomb or womb. However, as with most of these examples, it does soften and slightly elongate the word – so whereas ‘tomb’ would sound like ‘toh-m’ or the name ‘Tom’ is we just took out the b, ‘tomb’ is pronounced ‘tooh-m’. ![]() The silent b, usually coming after an m, is not pronounced ‘b’ as it would normally be at the front of a word (‘boy’). ![]() There are plenty of words in the English language that smuggle in a ‘b’ where it’s not needed, supposedly. We provide support, structure and help achieve your goals. Learn English today with the world’s largest online school: EF English Live. This is true for all ‘ign’ words – imagine that the ‘ign’ sounds like ‘sigh’ (de-sigh-n mal-ighn). However, the ‘g’ lightens and elongates the vowel sound – to be pronounced ‘sigh-n’. Here’s a few more examples: gnome, benign, malign, design, deign, gnash, sign…Ī great example of how the ‘silent’ g isn’t quite silent if we didn’t pronounce the ‘g’ at all, this would be ‘sin’. We don’t sound the hard ‘guh’ sound of the ‘g’ in these words, but its inclusion does give a slight lengthening of the vowel sound – ‘for-reyn’. ‘Foreign’ is a classic example – the only thing ‘foreign’ in that word is the ‘g’! There are many words which sound normal, and should be spelt in a normal simple way – and all of a sudden there’s a ‘g’ in there. Other key words with silent ‘c’s include: ascend, ascent/descent, fascinate, fluorescent, incandescent, obscene, scene, scenario or scented. Likewise, the ‘c’ works in slightly softening what would otherwise be a very hard, hissy ‘ss’ sound. ‘Scene’ for instance, has the first sound slightly further forward in the mouth than ‘seen’, it’s rhyme. Whilst you do not hear the c, it does slightly change the sound. ‘Miscellaneous’ – pronounced ‘mis- sell- lay – nee – ous’.‘Muscle’ – we say the same as ‘mussel’, the seafood.However, when following an ‘s’ it is often silent. In English we say ‘re-seet’, with no ‘p’ sounding in the second syllable, though some would argue that the p is there to slightly soften the sound.Ī bit like the ‘k’, the ‘c’ is usually a hard sound (unless followed by an ‘h’ ‘ch’ is soft, think ‘cheese’, ‘cheers’). ‘Pneumonia’ – caused when you catch excessive cold – also has a silent p, so it is pronounced ‘new-moan-ee-a’.įinally, you’ll every now and then find a silent p in the middle of a word, such as ‘receipt’. Indeed, when p or ‘ps’ starts a word it is almost always medical. Most of these words with silent ‘p’s are to do with the mind or the medicine of the mind: Psychology, psychiatry, psyche, psychological, psychotic or pseudo. The ‘p’, usually a popping sound made at the front of the mouth, is silenced when it precedes an ‘s’. ![]() Get started for free The silent P: Psychology with no receipt
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