3/27/2023 0 Comments Silent letter spelling alphabet![]() This event is more consistent than the Silent E long vowel principle, to which we’ve already seen there are quite a few exceptions. It can be seen that in each of these cases the Silent R creates a long vowel – and the most common are the three long vowels /ɑ:/ /ɜ:/ and /ɔ:/. Spun / spurn – bugger / burger – bust / burst – nuptial / nurture – tupperware / turpentine – For every five /faɪv/ we have a live /lɪv/ and for every drive /draɪv/ we have a give /gɪv/ – however, the letter V never doubles in English under any circumstances so this exception is easily explained.Īlong with this ”Silent E” that tends to keep / make vowels long rather than short, we can notice another spelling principle that does something similar: Silent R. We’ve seen this already in an earlier post on R and the /ɹ/ sound, and it’ll be returning once again when we come to talk about Vowel Joining.įor now, though, compare the following pairs of words:Īt / art – am / arm – stat / start – happy / harpy – ladder / larderīet / Bert – asset / assert – head / heard – geminate / germinate – temp / termĭitty / dirty – quick / quirk – victual / virtual – fist / first – ship / shirkįlop / floor – spot / sport – bottom / boredom – wok / work – odder / order ![]() – Words spelled -aste ( baste, haste, taste, waste) are usually pronounced as /eɪst/ – Words spelled – ind ( blind, find, kind, mind, wind) are usually pronounced as /aɪnd/ Of course, there are exceptions! It wouldn’t be English without plenty of those… Knot / knotted BUT note, notation, notable Writ / written BUT writing, write, writer Metric BUT metre /’mitə/ (note the Schwa /ə/ after the -t-) Met / mettle BUT mete (out) / meted / meting What we’re seeing is a number of illustrations of a spelling principle in English (it’s hard to call anything in English spelling a ”rule” so ”principle” will do) that a short vowel is kept short by the use of double consonants after it, while a long vowel is kept long by the use of a single consonant – which is often followed by a silent E (or another vowel, often a -y or an -ing suffix): Tunnel / tuning – dunce / dune – supple / super – puck / puce – brute / butter Holly / holy – block / bloke – loft / loaf – hopping / hoping – bonny / bony Scatter / skater – stack / stake – tapped / taped – hatted / hated – act / aceīetter / beater – left / leave – empathy / emotion – ethnic / eternal – gentle / geneĭrink / drive – fist / five – gripping / griping – brink / brine – dinner / diner Let’s compare a few other pairs of words: It’s to do with the vowel sound in each word, and more specifically whether a word contains a long or short vowel sound. I hope that before I even comment on it, a pattern should be obvious to most readers. ![]() One such pattern of spelling / pronunciation involves the use of double consonants and silent letters – principally silent E and silent R. For children learning to read and write this analysis would raise more questions than answers, but for adults who have a good systemic understanding of English from their studies of grammar and vocabulary there is useful knowledge to be gained from simply looking and listening carefully for the patterns which exist. However, there are clues in many written words that – for anyone who knows what to look for – can help with resolving some of these apparent inconsistencies. It’s certainly the case that English-speaking children tend to have more trouble learning to read and write than children raised to speak other languages, largely because of the inconsistencies in their language’s writing system. English spelling and pronunciation can be inconsistent and confusing – in fact it’s often said that English spelling makes no sense whatsoever. ![]()
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