This is true for a lot of words and I don’t understand what the point of including letters if they’re not supposed to be pronounced.
In: 6
On the periodic table, the abbreviation for “lead” is “Pb”, which comes from the latin word “Plumbum”, where the “b” was pronounced. Lead was widely used for water supply and drainage pipes and conduits, as well as waterproofing roofs and many other purposes. People who worked with “Plumbum” were known as “Plumbers”.
The overwhelming majority of the time that a letter is silent in one word, that letter is part of a root word, and certain other words with that same root will pronounce that letter.
Consider “Pterodactyl”. The “P” is silent. “Pter” is the latin word for “Wing”. When you attach two wings together in opposite direction and spin them, you get a helical wing, or helico-pter. You definitely pronounce the “p” in “helicopter”, even though you don’t pronounce it in pterodactyl.
How about the “g” in “Resign”? Spelling it “resine” or “rezine” loses the connection to the closely related “resignation”.
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