Most silent b's come at the ends of words and just after m: bomb, climb, comb, crumb, dumb, lamb, limb, numb, plumb, thumb, tomb.
According to The Oxford English Dictionary, the adjective "dumb" comes from the Old English verb adumbian, meaning to lose the power of speech. Presumably, the "b" would have been voiced at some point in history. Interestingly, there also existed an Old English verb adeafian, meaning to lose the power of hearing.
WE OWE the silent 'b' to the fact that centuries ago our ancestors pronounced a b-sound: climb was Old English climban, and bomb comes from Italian bomba. The b-sound was lost by about 1300. It leaves traces to the present day, however, in pairs such as climb-clamber, crumb-crumble.
The letter B is not pronounced in some words even though it occurs in words. B is silent when the word ends with mb and when the word ends with bt.
Remember, the silent b in the mb spelling rule is just for the end of the word, so don't start skipping the b in words like number, combine, or... remember. Just in case you're interested, I'll put the list of 'mb' words up with the transcripts to this episode, along with the origin of the word.
No, the letter 'b' is not silent in the word 'obvious'. Some accents have it silent, some don't. It's meant to not be silent, but not prominent either. Sometimes the B and V sounds blend together when speaking it, so it really depends on where you are.
But as Merriam-Webster Dictionary points out, one unusual letter is never silent: the letter V. While it makes an appearance in words like quiver and vivid, you can rest assured it always behaves the exact same way.
According to Ursula Dubosarky—author of “The Word Snoop”—about 60% of English words contain silent letters. There are silent consonants as well as silent vowels. They can be found at the beginning, middle, or end of a word.
Silent letter rule: don't pronounce the "b" in words ending in -bt, like "debt" and "doubt".
Silent “L” Patterns
If an “L” is found towards the end of the word, before the letters “f,” “v”, “k” and “m,” but after the letter “a,” then it's usually silent (behalf, calve, walk, almond).
Dumb is the Old English word that means "mute, speechless," and itself came from an even older word dheubh meaning "confusion, stupefaction, dizziness." Today, dumb still means "unable to speak," but it doesn't have anything to do with intelligence.
As The Independent nicely says it, "Silent Letters are the ghosts of pronunciations past." Older versions of these words had pronounced Ns. Most of them come to English from Latin. For example autumn comes from the Latin autumnus and column comes from the Latin columna. In these words, the N was pronounced.
Silent b is introduced in the word 'lamb'. To help remember this silent letter, there is a story of how the word was originally spelt – lambaz – in old Germanic. Over time the 'baz' at the end of the word was dropped from the pronunciation but the 'b' remained in the spelling of the word.
Silent D: The letter D is silent when it comes just before the letters N and G. Examples: Wednesday, pledge, grudge, cadge. The letter D is also not pronounced in the following common words: handsome, handkerchief, sandwich.
There is a silent "d" in the word "Wednesday" .
L is also silent in could, should, would, as well as in calf and half, and in chalk, talk, walk, and for many people in calm, palm, and psalm.
First, note that, in 'earth', there is no E /e/ that you have in 'ate'. Besides, there is no T in its pronunciation, although it is present in the spelling. Rather, what we have is the long form of the low A (ERR), plus the thither sound TH, which we have in month, length, three etc.
That the hardest sounds for children to learn are often the l, r, s, th, and z is probably not surprising to many parents, who regularly observe their children mispronouncing these sounds or avoiding words that use these letters.
Both are made by pressing the lips together, both are made by releasing air out of the mouth. The slight difference is called “voicing.” The /p/ sound is voiceless (the voice is “turned off”) and /b/ is voiced (the voice is “turned on” due to the vocal folds vibrating).