Silent E is an interesting phenomenon in English orthography. It’s a letter, usually at the end of a word, that we don’t pronounce–as in the word "pronounce." That ends in an S-sound, not an E-sound.
Thing is, silent E didn’t used to be silent.
Our English-speaking forebears used to pronounce those Es, which is how they got into the words in the first place. Then, over time, they started droppin’ ’em (like I "drop" my Gs). But the letter in the written form of the word stayed, or "stay-ed" as our forebears would have said.
You can hear a reflection of this in the fact that converts often start by saying "Blessed art thou among women" and pronouncing "blessed" as "blesst" instead of "bless-ed."
So it seems that we can do without all those Es.
But can we do without the letter E altogether and still communicate meaningfully? It is, after all, the single most commonly-used letter in the English alphabet. just look at the number of times I’ve had to use it in this post to say what I wanted to say. Surely nobody could go on for, say, fifty-thousand words of meaningful text without using the letter E.
Oh, no?
CHECK OUT THIS NOVEL THAT IS TOTALLY E-FREE.
But what of the effect that many of those final “e”s have on the pronunciation of the vowels that precede them in the word? (i.e., changing “short” vowels sounds into “long” vowel sounds)
How about: breath – breathe ?
I haven’t read the link yet, but how would I write “e-mail”? 🙂
Excellent! I thought of writing about what a wonderful idea such a novel would be without using the letter E but I quickly gave up! Gotta read this. Thanks for the link, Jimmy!
Wow. That’s actually fairly bright. I don’t think I could do it.
The interesting thing is that the novel A Void was originally written in French (La Dispiration by Georges Perec), a language in which E is as common as in English, if not more so. So not only the composition but the translation is a magnificent example of a lipogram.
Um . . .
Anyone else but me find it odd that OTHER ERIC’s e-mail address is “gayboy76@hotmail.com”?
???
Hey, that is fun. Was this written by a college student? I can’t imagine anyone else having that kind of time…
It reminds me a little of a language known as “E-prime”. It is a variant of English that never uses any form of the verb “to be”. “Is, was, were, are”, etc… are all left out. Wikipedia has an entry about it. If you read enough about it, though, it begins to get creepy. The whole idea is to change the way the speaker views reality. Sort of “Hey, hey – Ho, ho – absolutes have got to go!…” It’s O.K. to say “I feel bad about this”, but not “This is wrong”.
I think leaving out a letter, though, is just as much fun and doesn’t mess with your psyche. At least, that’s how I feel…
Hi Eric G!
I, for one, don’t find it odd at all.
Eric G & any others interested: As his e-mail address indicates, Other Eric is a person who has homosexual attractions and who openly describes himself as gay.
He also has interacted respectfully with others on this blog, even though of late we have been discussing issues that one would suppose might pain him and that he might strongly disagree with.
In view of his respectful attitude and willingness to think through these subjects, we owe him the same respect and willingness to think through points he may make.
Just because someone practices the “gay lifestyle” does not mean that he should not be treated with respect and engaged in dialog on important issues, including the Church’s teachings regarding homosexuality.
That’s what Christ, who died for Other Eric just as much for all of the rest of us, would have us do.
Thanks for understanding.
Actually, Jimmy, you don’t drop your ‘g’s, you just never got around to adding them. I think it is a London/East Anglian thing to have the g, the rest of the Old English dialects would have been -en or -an instead of -ing.
Just as the ‘a’ in a’huntin and a’fishin is the remnant of the old ge- verbal prefix, which fairly softened to y. As in “Adam lay ybounden”.
I thought Q was the most common letter in English!So the Q-free novel I’m writing is worthless?!?!
I just couldn’t get past my opening sentence:’Quasimodo and the Queen get queasy on qlear qqquiet days’, and it doesn’t help that my keyboard erratically generates extra qqqq’s.
Down our way, it would be impossible to do without ‘F’. That, of course, would also exclude ‘E’, as in “what are you guys EF***n well talking about?
Seriously (sorry for my colonial south Pacific course sense of ‘umour) – no ‘H'(Cockney variant)
In the Maori language – indeed mosy Polynesian languages the letter ‘G’ is silent. For example, the country Tonga is pronounced Tong – a without any ‘G’ sound.
The Maori word for ‘name’ is ‘ingoa’ without sounding the ‘G’, but retaining the …ing. But in Hawaiian, the word for name is ‘ inoa’.
The amazing thing is that going back 5 or 10 centuries a Maori from New Zealand would be understood in Hawaii 8,000 mile away.
Great navigators and sailors, those early Polynesians.
Hey, I’m cool with all that, Jimmy. I just wanted to make sure we didn’t have a troll on our hands.
I myself am a struggling actor, and so naturally am very tolerant of those who practice the gay lifestyle. You gotta be in this business!
It feels really cool to know that I, for one, am the “original” Eric of this blog, and so other people need to cater their identifications to mine!
He, he!
Actually, in his e-mail Other Eric told me that the Eric who his name refers to is someone who visits Dave Morrisson’s blog.
Gosh darns it! You just COULDN’T leave me in my delusion, could ya, Jimmy?
Was that charitable?!
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