English Oddities
April 24th, 2008
Jackson~ 6.5 years old
“Mom, why do they have a k in front of knife? It doesn’t make any sense! It looks like it should say ka-niffy. I am just going to erase that k so it makes more sense.”
Me “Jackson we can’t erase the k. The word is knife and it is spelled with silent k in the front.”
Jackson “Why did they do that Mom?”
Me “That is a good question son. I really don’t know.”
Do any of you know? Is it a Latin root or something left over from old English? While I am waiting for your pithy responses I will go Google it and see if I can figure it out on my own.
Peace to all confused spellers today~
Entry Filed under: Homeschool
5 Comments
Add your own1. lora | April 24th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
My dad always pronounced it “ka-nife”. I thought is was just to be silly, but I swear I heard (in school or something) that it really did used to be pronounced that way…
i could SO be wrong. in fact, it’s likely. =)
the funny thing is, my Zeek, who is 2 1/2, and has been in the presence of my dad only twice in his life, says “ka-nife” and “han-Ger”, and has a few other words in which he phonetically pronounces every letter like that…no, he can’t read. just silly I think. =)
i can’t wait to hear what you learn about it though.
2. Amber(Homeschool Diva) | April 24th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Well, that is basically what I found:-) It is historical and used to be pronounced differently. I am deep into phonics right now, and it is true the English language is peculiar. Here is an article if anyone is interested.
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/silentletters01.html
3. truevyne | April 24th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Don’t know why, but it’s very pertinent to my children who have grown up in and around Knoxville!
4. Paul G | April 25th, 2008 at 1:31 am
Egad, it’s not until you learn another language that you discover what a terrible hodgepodge of a language English is. It’s like the Rube Goldberg machine of the language world…
5. Jack's Mommy | April 25th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
haha…i found that SAME page, liked it, and came here to post it for you - then noticed you already had the link!
it’s pretty interesting!
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