Here I am, again to talk to you about language.
So, have you ever noticed that some letters in words are left unpronounced? For example, "Physical".
These letters are called SILENT LETTERS.
Since this blog has been targeted for secondary school students, I'm going to spare you from the elaborate details. We'll just try this step by step and with simple explanations, shall we? :)
[in other words, I will not be using transcriptions]
*Oh and please note that I am only going to touch on the more common ones since there are quite a lot of these :)
Let's start with a word in a song by Miley Cyrus
1. climb (pronounced klaim)
This word consists of a silent B
- words that have a B following an M and the end of words like 'plumber' and 'comb' have silent Bs
[another point to add, don't you think it's just tiring to say 'klaimbuh' or 'plambuh'? :) ]
What about an attractive person?
2. handsome (pronounced haensum)
This word consists of a silent D
- some of the words that have this similar attribute are 'handbag', 'wednesday' and 'sandwich'
[again, saying 'haendsum' or 'wednusdey' is just too much of a fuss!]
Who saves the damsel in distress?
3. knight (pronounced nait)
This word consists of a silent K
- other examples of this are 'knock' and 'knowledge'
[now, can you really imagine someone saying "Soon the 'kuhnait' will save the damsel!"]
Another word for serenity
4. calm (pronounced kaam)
This word consists of a silent L
- similar to this; 'would', 'should' and 'talk'
[it would be a waste of saliva to say 'kalm' or 'shoold']
There are the silent P and S and others too, but these are words that people commonly make mistakes of. If you have any other inquires, don't be shy to drop a comment :)
Silent Letters :)
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