Silent Letters Puzzle

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by retina

P&S: corps

But I think the king of silent letters is: cholmondely/cholmondeley (pronounced chumly)

You've been watching too much Harry Enfield.
I went to Wymondham (Windum) College.

David

[petrw1]

This is what I have so far - uneditted.
My rules:
- no proper nouns ... sorry no Leicester
- a different word for each silent letter ... sorry no two-fors, pick one
- a word can only be used once. aegis can be pronounced either way, mind you "A" and "E" are among the easiest common letters to find. Unless you are looking for points for bigger words.

cholmondely/cholmondeley are not in Webster

A: aegis
A: boat
B: subtle.
C: yacht
D and (final) E: edge
E: aegis
G and H: sigh
I: laid
K and W: know
L: calm
M: mnemonic
P&S: corps
P&S: corps
P: Pflugerville
P: pseudo
P: Psychology
S: debris
T: tzar
U: guide, guild
X: chateaux

[rogue]

Originally Posted by petrw1

L: calm

This word is pronounced with the "l" by many people, including myself. I recommend using could/would/should instead.

[Wacky]

Please delete "Pflugerville" from the "P" list. Although I think that it is an interesting example, and I personally know a number of members of the Pfluger family, the town name certainly pfalls in the category of proper noun.

[Wacky]

Do we have a clue as to our cue to join the queue?

[retina]

Originally Posted by petrw1

cholmondely/cholmondeley are not in Webster

I think you need a better dictionary. There is no reason to make Webster[1] be the sole authority for your list, how about using the Internet instead.

[1] You never stated which webster!

[Wacky]

As I look at this more closely, I am concerned that we have a "problem" with respect to "silent" vowels.

Consider "bot" and "bought". Perhaps they are pronounced in the same way; or perhaps not. The distinction may come to naught. The English language is well known for its failure to have a consistent mapping, much less one-to-one, between spelling and pronounciation.

Therefore, I suggest that this "puzzle" is not "well formed" and that we consider, instead, the more classical "puzzles" that involve mathematics.

[grandpascorpion]

New one:

O: pious

Also (instead of know)
W: flow

Kudos to the finder of mnemonic.

[MS63]

Originally Posted by petrw1

This is what I have so far - uneditted.
...
D and (final) E: edge

The D IS pronounced.

E: aegis

The A is silent, not the E.

...
L: calm

The L IS pronounced.

M: mnemonic

The M IS pronounced.

...

What about the situation where letters are not pronounced but are used as modifiers in the written word eg sit/site, hop/hope, bar/bear, clam/claim, etc. Do these really count as silent letters?



MS63

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

Both are correct. (silent A or silent E)
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=aegis

Webster's Third New International has only the silent-a pronuciation. 31 years has been a good run, but I guess it's time to get a newer unabridged.

Originally Posted by MS63

The D IS pronounced.

WTNID begins: "¹edge / ej / ..."

The L IS pronounced.

WTNID has it both pronounced and silent in "calm".

The M IS pronounced.

The second m of mnemonic is pronounced, but I haven't seen any dictionary showing the first m as pronounced.

What about the situation where letters are not pronounced but are used as modifiers in the written word eg sit/site, hop/hope, bar/bear, clam/claim, etc. Do these really count as silent letters?

In most English contexts, the silent final e is considered silent even though it influences the pronunciation of vowels preceding it (mat/mate, her/here, bit/bite, slop/slope, dud/dude).

[Patrick123]

H - Anchor.

N - Hymn or Column.

Z - Pizza, usually pronounced Pitsa.

Regards
Patrick