To use the students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 expression, they were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153freaked out\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at hearing the way I pronounced \u00e2\u20ac\u0153knight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well now everyone knows the word belongs to that group of English words that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fraught with silent letters. There are only three sounds in the word: n, a long i, and a t.<\/p>\n
The gasping took place back in 1967, when I taught English literature to advanced placement students in Cuba, N.M. We were studying the Canterbury Tales, by the 14th century author Geoffrey Chaucer, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d already covered the prologue; I had them memorize the first 18 lines of the long poem: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote \/ The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote …\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
In the tales is a description of each pilgrim, including the knight (who, by the way, told one of the less-obscene tales). I read the passage aloud and jolted the class when I pronounced the title of that respectable gentleman as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153k-nih-ht.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
When I myself was a student in the class, I learned that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153knight\u00e2\u20ac\u009d had no silent letters, the way our modern, Anglicized orthography dictates. We had some fun with that linguistic curiosity, and a couple of the students even exaggerated the matter, one asking, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mr. Trujillo, shall I turn out the lih-ht, or should I wait till nih-ht time?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Oft have I written that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing anyone learns the English language, with all its exceptions, its contradictory rules, its multiple ways of pronouncing the sequence \u00e2\u20ac\u0153o-u-g-h.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As for the silent letters, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve discovered there might be just as many \u00e2\u20ac\u0153invisible\u00e2\u20ac\u009d letters, i.e., sounds that occur in words when there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no logical letter to represent it. For example, there is no \u00e2\u20ac\u0153r\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in colonel, but there is one in kernel. Most people, new to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153colonel\u00e2\u20ac\u009d might be tempted to pronounce it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153colo-nel,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d without an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153r.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
An out-of-fashion piece of apparel, worn around the waist, especially by tuxedo-renters, is called the cummerbund. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s of Urdu and Persian extraction, as kamar-band. There is only one \u00e2\u20ac\u0153b\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the word, but yet we insert in when we call it a cumberbund. Similarly, we sometimes insert an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153r\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when we decide to warsh dishes after eating squarsh. And a surprise \u00e2\u20ac\u0153l\u00e2\u20ac\u009d often shows up when people refer to the Solviet Union.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d These same people enjoy sherbert but not sherbet.<\/p>\n
Silent letters and phantom sounds abound in English. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a pleasure to study Spanish, which is about as phonetic as a language can be. Anyone familiar with the Spanish sound system can instinctively infer how the words are pronounced.<\/p>\n
In English, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no earthly reason why common words like was, once, says, one, two, who, this and thin ought to be spelled or pronounced the way they are. How does anyone ever learn English? Why aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t these words wuz, wunce, sez, wun, etc.?<\/p>\n
Silent letters sometimes have their own justification. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d combination, as in pterodactyl, elides the first sound, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153p,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to avoid a collision of plosive sounds, but yet, when that combination appears in the middle of the word, as in helicopter, we pronounce both sounds.<\/p>\n
The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153k\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is often silent at the beginning of the word, as evidenced in a discussion between Tennessee neighbors, working on a car. One of them explained he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d need to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153make a trip to Mart to get some car parts.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The other man corrected the neighbor by explaining, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only one store around here and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the K-Mart.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The first man said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m from Knoxville where the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 is silent.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Reasons for ghost sounds and silent letters in English include the notion that pronunciation changes before spelling does; those who speak a foreign tongue often struggle with our pronunciations and thus use sounds they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re accustomed to.<\/p>\n
Another explanation is that throughout history, English has borrowed enormous amounts of words from Latin, German and French and has continued to render such borrowings as if they were originally English words.<\/p>\n
On the subject of silent letters and ghost sounds, try to determine what the following common words have in common:<\/p>\n
1. cease; 2. debt; 3. indict; 4. and 5. handkerchief; 6. half-penny; 7. champagne; 8. thyme; 9. lien; 10. marijuana<\/p>\n
Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let the appearance of unpronounced letters disturb you. Remember, psilence is golden.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
This is definitely not an attempt to put down female teachers; rather, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m simply trying to praise the men who teach, when the proportions of men in the schools are dwindling.<\/p>\n
I ran into Leroy Conway at the Abe Montoya Recreation Center last week. I remembered having complimented him in the past about his choosing elementary education as his major. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in his fifth year as a teacher at Paul D. Henry Elementary School.<\/p>\n
I also recalled having read an article \u00e2\u20ac\u201d about 40 years ago \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in the NEA Journal, the teachers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Bible, about elementary and secondary education. The editors took the liberty of explaining, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to simplify matters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when the article uses \u00e2\u20ac\u0153her\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153she,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the reference is to elementary school teachers.<\/p>\n
By the same token, references to males referred strictly to high school teachers. Forty years ago, in a large district in which I taught (high school), there was a healthy mixture of males and females.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153she\u00e2\u20ac\u009d classified teachers by the level they taught, even then. The distinction today is even more patent. What is the situation now?<\/p>\n
A fairly recent report by the U.S. Department of Education shows a ratio of 8.21 male teachers in public schools to 25.8 females. Of the 3.7 million public school teachers, 76 percent are female. At the elementary school level, the difference might be even greater.<\/p>\n
This isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t intended to be a scholarly treatise on education but merely a scratch-the-surface attempt to applaud males who enter the teaching profession, especially at the elementary level. Although at times Leroy Conway might feel he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only male around, there are others.<\/p>\n
Yes, female teachers are great, but school kids of both sexes need to experience male role models as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To use the students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 expression, they were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153freaked out\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at hearing the way I pronounced \u00e2\u20ac\u0153knight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Well now everyone knows the word belongs to that group of English words that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fraught with silent letters. There are only three sounds in the word: n, a long i, and a t. The gasping took place back in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1037,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036\/revisions\/1037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}