What is the silent letter in answer?
What is the silent letter in answer?
Silent W. In words that begin with ‘wr’ such as ‘write’, do not pronounce the ‘w’. The letter is also silent in words like ‘answer’ and ‘two’.
What are silent letters examples?
In English pronunciation, a silent letter—a term used informally—is a letter or letter combination of the alphabet that is usually not pronounced in a word. Examples include the b in subtle, the c in scissors, the g in design, the t in listen, and the gh in thought.
What is the purpose of silent letters?
Silent letters can distinguish between homophones, e.g. in/inn; be/bee; lent/leant. This is an aid to readers already familiar with both words. Silent letters may give an insight into the meaning or origin of a word; e.g. vineyard suggests vines more than the phonetic *vinyard would.
Which letter is silent in Almond?
A: The “l” in “almond” was silent until very recently. That’s the only pronunciation given in my old 1956 printing of the unabridged Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language (2d ed.).
Do Americans pronounce the L in Almond?
A dig around discussion forums confirms the silent “L” is a regional thing in the U.S. as in the U.K. Some Americans ignore the “L” in foods like salmon and almond, and others give them the full wellie, saying SAL-mon and ALL-mond. The latest TV commercial for Hershey’s Almond Joy has a subtle “L” sound in there.
Why is the L not pronounced in salmon?
The l in salmon was never pronounced in English and its presence in the spelling is a result of the same 17th century Latin obsession that gave us the b in debt and doubt. Salmon in Latin was ‘salmo’ (‘salmonem’ in the accusative), which was pronounced as written.
Why is L silent in half?
In walk, chalk, and talk, the L comes after an A, and the vowel is pronounced like a short O. Half and calf have an AL, too, but the vowel is pronounced like the short A in staff. In could, should, and would, the L comes after OU, and the sound is exactly like the OO in good.
Is the P silent in Ptolemy?
In other words, demotic characters didn’t just symbolize concepts; they spelled out how words were pronounced. (As you may have guessed, in Greek the P in Ptolemy isn’t silent.)
Is the P in psi silent?
The short answer is that most words that begin with a silent P in English come from Greek, where the initial /p/ sound was pronounced. For instance, the Greek word that “psalm” derives from began with the Greek letter psi, which in Classical Greek was pronounced with a /ps/ sound.
Is the L in calm silent?
The answer is the year 1066 and 2000 years of invasions, occupations, and political complexities that go far beyond “correctness.” “Calm” does, in fact, have a silent L because of 1066; however, in some regions it has a lightly pronounced L. Why? Because that’s how language works naturally over time.
Is R silent in February?
The r in February has been dropped so that it is almost always pronounced Febuary–without the r. Perhaps this is because placing the r sound in the word makes it slightly more difficult to pronounce, and since laziness tends to get the upper hand when we speak, Febuary has become the common pronunciation.
Is the R in turmeric silent?
As it happens, you can correctly pronounce “turmeric” either with or without sounding that first “r”: TUR-mer-ik or TOO-mer-ik. gives both as standard pronunciations.
Is it pronounced turmeric or turmeric?
A: You’re largely right. It’s “TER-muh-rihk,” according to “The New Food Lover’s Companion.” Go to the online Oxford Dictionaries Web page (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com) to hear how to pronounce the word.