Silent Letters
Further information: Silent letterSome letters do not provide any information about contemporary English pronunciation. For example, in Old and Middle English was an allophone of /f/ occurring between vowels. The deletion of historical final schwas (weak vowels) at the end of words such as give and have phonemicized /v/, but the now-silent ⟨e⟩ remained at the end of most /v/-final words. Words spelled with final ⟨v⟩ such as rev and Slav remain comparatively rare.
Read more about this topic: English Orthography
Famous quotes containing the words silent and/or letters:
“when I work I am pure as an angel
tiger and clear is my eye and hot
my brain and silent all the whining
grunting piglets of the appetites.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“Two months dead, I wrestle with your name
Whose separate letters make a paltry sum
That is not you.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)