Re: My favorite silent English letter is:

Maybe other British English speakers will disagree with me, but I would never drop the "o" at the beginnging of "opossum" but then it isn't a word I use very much either.

Comment on Re: My favorite silent English letter is:

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Re^2: My favorite silent English letter is: by runrig (Abbot) on Mar 01, 2012 at 18:02 UTC
The "o" completely disappears in the phrase "play possum" :-)	[reply]
Re^3: My favorite silent English letter is: by mertserger (Curate) on Mar 02, 2012 at 08:38 UTC
But there is no silent O in "possum" though it is possible there might be a missing one, if you consider possum=opossum. It is quite common for words to lose letters over time, like how the Latin "fenestra" became the French "fenętre". Can you tell I do tech support for a dictionary?	[reply]
Re^4: My favorite silent English letter is: by runrig (Abbot) on Mar 02, 2012 at 18:39 UTC
See my note elsewhere in this thread.	[reply]
Re^2: My favorite silent English letter is: by LanX (Sage) on Mar 01, 2012 at 18:08 UTC
checking WP reveals that opossums and possums belong to different families. So probably it's a false example. Cheers Rolf	[reply]


go ahead... be a heretic
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