Why does the English language have so many words where one or more letters are silent. For example why couldn’t “Knife” be simply written as nife or whatever combination of letters that make pronunciation obvious.

Question

Why does the English language have so many words where one or more letters are silent. For example why couldn’t “Knife” be simply written as nife or whatever combination of letters that make pronunciation obvious.

In: 2529

Answer 1

Give a man a ghoti and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to ghoti and he’ll eat for the rest of his life.

“Ghoti” is pronounced:

– “gh” like “enough”
– “o” like “women”
– “ti” like “election”

The point is, English is weird, man.