Boycott Silent Letters!!!
As one of the owners of a family owned commercial carpet cleaning company South of the River in Minnesota, I write a lot of blogs based on the carpet and upholstery cleaning industry, especially about what is of particular concern to the Twin Cities Area. Today I have stepped outside that direction to cover a subject that is of concern not only to the carpet cleaning industry, but a concern to every English speaking person on the entire planet. Silent Letters! Seriously, what is up with that?! I don’t know who first started the trend of needless letters that make no sound, but I am even more appalled with those that encouraged and helped spread such an awful affront to the quality of life in English speaking countries. Honestly, have you ever watched a six year old try to look up the word gnome in a dictionary? His bright red frustrated face glowing over pages as he scrambles frantically through the wrong half of the book. Perhaps these imaginary letters made some kind of sense back in the days when we believed in wizards and dragons, but in the 21st century, I think it is time to drop the act and admit that there is no point to adding letters that don’t adhere to the laws of phonetics (really, the word phonetics doesn’t start phonetically!), especially words that start with silent letters. There is only one word that should start with a silent letter and that is the word pseudonym. This is only because the word is used when a fake name disguises a real name. So it is fitting that the first letter disguises its real pronunciation. That is the one and only exception to the rule. No other words should begin with a useless letter. “Knock knock…”, “Who’s there?” “The letter K”, “Really I thought you were N.” As I wrestle to write out these gnarly words, my knuckles wrinkle and my knees knock because I don’t know why these phonetics are wrong. And what is up with the word knight? Six letters and half of them don’t have any purpose. That is a waste of good ink if you ask me. How many hours of education are lost while teachers and aids plead with children to understand the concept of silent letters? How much quality family time disappears while parents try to make sense of this senseless issue. Perhaps children wouldn’t hate homework so much if they didn’t feel backhanded every time they tried to pronounce a word that starts with the second letter. Life isn’t fair, that’s true, this is because we have no control over so many things. We do, however, have control over this. We can make a difference. We must take action. I call every frustrated English speaking human being to take a stand and boycott silent letters! From now on we avoid those words at all costs and when we can’t, we start to pronounce those camouflaged letters and call them out of hiding before we spiral into a collective psychosis. . . Doh!