SPELLING
LESSON 23
Many words contain letters for which there are no corresponding sounds in the spoken words. Thus, in the spoken word though there are only two sounds, the th and the o; u and g and h are silent. There are a great many words in the English language which contain these silent letters. There has been a movement inaugurated for the purpose of simplifying the spelling of these words, omitting these silent letters. Some writers have adopted this method of simplified spelling, and so in some magazines and books which you read you will find these silent letters dropped; for example, you will find though spelled tho, through spelled thru.
This method of simplified spelling has not been universally adopted and we have not followed it in these lessons because we feared that it would be confusing. Probably in most of your reading you will find the old method of spelling followed and all of these silent letters included. No doubt, as time goes on, we shall adopt this simplified method of spelling and drop all of these silent and useless letters.
In our spelling lesson for this week we have a number of words containing silent letters.
MONDAY
In a number of words you will find ea pronounced as short e. The board of simplified spelling has suggested that we drop the a, which is a silent letter, from these words. If we adopted their suggestion, words like head would be spelled hed. Note the spelling of the following words in which ea is pronounced as short e and the a is silent.
Spread, stead, threat, meant, pleasant, stealth.