Many words contain letters for which there are no corresponding sounds in the spoken words. Thus, in the spoken word though there are only two sounds, the th and the o; u and g and h are silent. There are a great many words in the English language which contain these silent letters. There has been a movement inaugurated for the purpose of simplifying the spelling of these words, omitting these silent letters. Some writers have adopted this method of simplified spelling, and so in some magazines and books which you read you will find these silent letters dropped; for example, you will find though spelled tho, through spelled thru.

This method of simplified spelling has not been universally adopted and we have not followed it in these lessons because we feared that it would be confusing. Probably in most of your reading you will find the old method of spelling followed and all of these silent letters included. No doubt, as time goes on, we shall adopt this simplified method of spelling and drop all of these silent and useless letters.

In our spelling lesson for this week we have a number of words containing silent letters.

MONDAY

In a number of words you will find ea pronounced as short e. The board of simplified spelling has suggested that we drop the a, which is a silent letter, from these words. If we adopted their suggestion, words like head would be spelled hed. Note the spelling of the following words in which ea is pronounced as short e and the a is silent.

Spread, stead, threat, meant, pleasant, stealth.

TUESDAY

We have a number of words ending in ough in which the gh is silent.

1. In some of these words the ou is pronounced like ow. We have already changed the spelling of a few of these words, for example, we no longer use plough, but write it plow.

2. In other words ending with ough the ugh is silent and the words end with a long o sound, as in though. Many writers have dropped the silent letters ugh and spell this simply tho.

3. A few other words ending with ough end with a u sound and those who adopt the simplified spelling have dropped the ough and used simply u, as in through; many writers spell it simply thru. Observe the spelling of the following words and mark the silent letters:

Bough, through, thorough, furlough, borough, though.

WEDNESDAY

We have a number of words ending in mn in which the n is silent. Note the spelling of the following words:

Autumn, solemn, column, kiln, hymn, condemn.

THURSDAY

We have a number of words containing a silent b. Notice the spelling of the following words:

Doubt, debt, dumb, limb, thumb, lamb.

FRIDAY

A number of words end with silent ue after g. Some writers omit the ue and probably after a while we will drop this silent ue, but you will find it used now in most of your reading. These are such words as:

Catalogue, demagogue, decalogue, tongue, league, harangue.

SATURDAY

We have a number of words ending with gh in which the gh has the sound of f, as in the following words:

Trough, rough, enough, laugh, tough, cough.