this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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And why is the W silent anyways?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I guess my confusion comes from the fact I'm from a place that only within the last 100 years or so has all but lost the original "hw" in "correct" speech, except in "who", and I was thinking that the 'w' had to have been preserved, especially if the 'h' was.

There's also that the 'w' hasn't vanished in "twenty" (or "twain", etc.).

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

No worries - plus the whole thing is damn counter-intuitive, both "sounds fusing together but still conveying two phonemes" and "that sound was analysed as one phoneme, now as another" are kind of weird.