A isn't in Bread, B isn't in Numb, and J is almost never silent

Today's post comes courtesy in large part of the Merriam Webster Word of the Day.

(www.physiciansweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/Reuters_Direct_Media/HealthNewsOnlineReport/tagreuters.com2018binary_LYNXMPEE5K1XK-FILEDIMAGE.jpg)

The Word of the Day is actually vulpine, which means to have fox like qualities. I did not know that (now I do), but that is not the purpose of this post.

Merriam Webster is a wealth of knowledge of the English language. I would hope so; they print school dictionaries, after all.

English has a long and tortured history behind it. According to my desktop personal assistant, Alexa, English has approximately over 1,000,000 words. Huh. I don't know that many. According to englishlive.ef.com, the average native English speaker knows between 20,000-30,000 words. Now that's interesting. I would begin to list them, but that would make for a dreadful post. According to dictionary.com, English is made up of approximately 80% "loan words," or words that came from other languages.

I would hate to be the person who had to figure that out. It is obvious, however, that many words spoken "natively" in English are French in origin (a la carte), German (blitz) and definitely Latin (the entire genus of species). Yet, I am not inclined to discuss the history of English.

Instead, the point of this post today is to discuss silent letters, or letters that are printed in words but not pronounced and make no sound. Knight, Hour, Rendezvous. 25 of the 26 letters in the English language are silent at one point, some of them much more than others. English is awash in silent letters.

V is never silent. Maybe in covfefe. Maybe. That's a discussion point, but otherwise, V is never silent.
J is only ever silent in one English word. Ever. Can you guess? Yes. Marijuana. Very fitting.

What I Learned Today: English is really fucked up (I knew that already). The letter "J" is rarely ever silent.

---

(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe

---

About Me

Sometimes photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. Nerd. 
General all around problem-solver and creative type.

---

Blind Skeleton

Online Radio: https://blindskeleton.one/radio/
Three Tune Tuesday Live Stream: 12:00pm (noon) EST

Frogs of War Games

Tidwick

The Feet Community

What I Learned Today