Why kn spelling

Know why "kn" is used where "n" would su Post by eberntson » Thu Feb 10, pm This is a french vs germanic-english thing, but why do we retain the KN. Post by Apoclima » Sun Feb 13, pm See: I like the historical spellings like the "gh" in 'light' and the "k" in 'know. Last edited by Apoclima on Thu May 26, pm, edited 1 time in total. The rest is poetry, imagination. It does not serve any useful purpose!

When you start talking about simplification of spelling, you're opening the ultimate can of worms. What your question is really saying is that spelling should follow pronunciation. This creates a very special problem in English, where the pronunciation varies not only from country to country, but within the same country and even within the same city!

The Staten Island pronunciation is distinct from the Brooklyn pronunciation, for example. Should each side write it a different way? Very confusing. That is why English has become a language where spelling is merely a general indication of pronunciation. We have to learn words more as a picture of an idea than an actual representation of sounds.

A bit like Chinese, where symbols are used to represent whole words. December 18th, Category: columns. Katie Baker. Charlize Dawson. Mo Newman. Vernon Doria.

Please support The Word Detective. Makes a great gift! Click cover for more. Search us! To search for a specific phrase, put it between quotation marks. Oh, and here's my respelling of your sentence in a phonemic spelling reform. The Germanic languages gave English these "gh", "kn" words where "ch", "k" were once pronounced, and one theory I've heard is that it didn't fit into the Britons comprising the Celts scope of pronunciation; either they couldn't adopt it in natural speech or it wasn't aesthetic.

I'm not sure of "gn" - I think this is in part a Latin reminance that was generally always pronounced "ny" like in "gnocchi". Joe, well, some people say that a spelling reform should include all dialects if one happens. Maybe the ''kn'', ''gn'', ''wr'' and ''wh'' should be ignored but my system includes them as they represent distinct phonemes for some Scots.

I've heard there's someone by the name of Jim that's interested in included all dialects in his spelling reform proposal and he includes ''wh''. Jim, if your trying to include the distinctions made in all dialects in your spelling reform proposal then it should include all the distinctions included in my proposal. Sunday, July 11, , GMT. Another thread taken over by the spelling reform agitators! The first of course. My respelling is better than Nurp's.

Often a thread about some other topic gets side-tracked by spelling reform or some other tangent. Other times he tends to make some smart aleck comment which he usually tends to regret in time. The word is a back-formation of knickerbockers.

Knurling is a process of impressing a diamond-shaped or straight-line pattern into the surface of a work piece by using specially shaped hardened metal wheels.

Two foreign borrowings, Knesset and knish , do not belong to the category of words spelled with the phonogram kn. Knesset noun : The parliament of the State of Israel. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day?