Ever notice how English has some of the most random silent letter and related grammar rules?

Like c in the Sc in Science, gh in Light, K in the Kn Know, t in the tch in Catch, b in Debt, g in Impugn, and the combination of Cz in Czech (which is spelled with a Č in the real language of Czech, which should've been translated as Ch), and even now Wednesday is Wens-day, Interesting is Intresting, etc. It's like there's no rhyme or reason for these random dropped letters. Perhaps some seem to effect the word, like tch in catch, but really they don't, because catch is the same as cach. Why is English the most prevalent with these rules? And do these rules actually have rhyme and reason, or are they all just adopted words from other languages that weren't changed?

Ever notice how English has some of the most random silent letter and related grammar rules?
Yes, the silent letters do have a reason. Many are remnants from different pronunciations that have evolved over time, from the attempt to reform spelling to reflect assumed Latin roots and many other reasons. No matter how bizarre the spelling seems today, there is a reason for it. Try researching the history of English if you are interested. I took a whole course on it when I was in university, and it was fascinating.





As for rules, our prescriptive grammar rules are mainly taken from Latin rules as applied by those who, in the past, thought English should be more like Latin. Latin was the language of learning for centuries, so it seemed logical to make English resemble it more. The problem is, of course, that the Latin rules don't always make sense for a Germanic language. For example, it is a rule in Latin that one cannot split an infinitive, so we have that rule in English. Of course, as the famous line from Star Trek tells us, the Enterprise endeavored "To boldly go where no man has gone before." According to our rules of grammar, it should be "To go boldly where no man has gone before." If you ask me, it doesn't have the same ring to it. You may have noticed that some of these rules are being ignored, forgotten or are being generally phased out. For example, people don't use "whom" very much anymore, and ending a sentence with a preposition isn't uncommon either.





Some interestng spelling changes have come from "etymological respellings". For example, Debt and doubt are from 'det' and 'doute'- Middle English, from Old french. The 'b' has likely been inserted due to the idea that people thought the words were originally from the Latin 'debitum' and 'dubitare'. In this manner we also got the 'c' in 'indict' and 'b' in subtle. At the time of the respellings, some people thought that pronunciation should follow the new spelling. One such person was said to be Shakespeare's schoolmaster Holofernes. He believed that saying 'det' instead of 'debt' was incorrect and called the unchanged "rackers of ortagriphie [orthorgraphy]" (169).





English seems a hodge-podge of words and rules because it really is! That's what is so great about our language. It is constantly evolving to suit the needs of its speakers. We can borrow words, create new ones, phase out archaic grammar rules and much more.
Reply:I believe it is because English has roots in just about every known language, Latin, Greek, Asiatic, several romantic languages. also English has evolved and changed. consider the difference between "king James" and gamers w00t
Reply:I find it funny when people say that English is an easy language to learn. English is one of the most difficult because it has so many exceptions to rules that don't have any rhyme or reason. Languages like Japanese (that "appear" to be difficult) are easy because they have set rules and only a handful of exceptions to those rules.
Reply:I think we keep getting lazier and just are not enunciating. The "new" pronunciations are just accepted out of continuing the laziness. Think of what will happen once we try to adapt to cyberspeak.no1 will say hol wrds bc it's 2 much trubl
Reply:english is the second hardest language in world. the first is chinese.
Reply:We definitely do have a lot of rules about pronunciation, but


Catch, Wednesday and interesting don't have any silent letters when said correctly.
Reply:Ive always wondered about these things too..





Some of my favourites are :





cough





bough





though





through





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