Talk:Silent k and g

Untitled

Forgive me if I am making an obvious blunder, but what does this sentence mean? "A silent ‹k› is quite common in the English language, most often preceding an ‹n› at the beginning of a word. There a [sic] rare exceptions to this rule; one example is Knoebels Grove located in Pennsylvania" I assume it is saying that a silent K precedes an N but for 'rare exceptions' including the name Knoebels Grove - but surely this is a Kn- name.  ?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.220.10.245 (talk) 22:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

It is saying that the [k] IS pronounced in Knoebels Grove, that's all. Raymondwinn (talk) 19:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Deletion

I don't see why this page meets the criteria for deletion. I didn't find any articles on 'Silent K' although there is an article on 'Silent E'.

The information is of course useful to both students of English and teachers alike.

I think the article should at least be started so that it may grow into an article of the same calibre as the 'Silent E' article.

I think you don't need to 'care enough' to move the article to the 'K' article. It would be more suited to a 'Silent Consonant' article, which doesn't exist yet.

That is a good point; I was not aware of the existence of Silent E. --Chris 09:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I should very much like to see an article on the silent T, as well. The words castle, Christmas, fasten, listen, mortgage, often (pronouncing the T is a pet peeve), soften, and whistle leap immediately to mind. As do the French cognates (buffet, ballet, depot, etc.) -- TheEditrix2 19:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

notability

Is silent k so different from silent p or g? This list of words looks copy-and-pasted from the "kn" section of a dictionary. At least b is more unpredictable in its appearances. Perhaps we can have an article on vestigial consonants of English. Potatoswatter 08:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Old English

"In Old English the /k/ was not silent (pronounced dn-, hn-, tn-)"
Really? I would have guessed [kn] to usually have a /kn/ pronunciation. Also, does anyone know if there is a reason that the Ks that became silent (and were maintained in orthography) all precede N? --Xyzzyva (talk) 06:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Redundancy

Isn't it a little unnecessary to have every noun listed under the category nouns labeled within the list as "(noun)" or all the verbs listed in the category of the same name labeled in the same manner?

Nouns

• knapsack,
• knar,
• knave (noun),
• knawel (noun),
• knead (noun),
• knee (noun) (and its derivatives, kneecap, kneeboard, etc.),
• knapweed (noun)

etc.

RJM (talk) 04:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Silent ⟨k⟩ or <kn>?

Is it actually a silent ⟨k⟩ when followed by <n> or is it that there is no <k> because <k><n> has become the digraph <kn>, which has the sound /n/? 2.99.114.91 (talk) 19:29, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I feel like this shouldn't be an issue. Both ways to look at it are right in their own way; this is because language is always evolving and trying to categorise things into neat little boxes is just impossible. While I do think that you make a valid point, I feel like it's just arguing pedantics and doesn't really matter in the long run. KittySaya (talk) 17:31, 12 June 2022 (UTC)