Ten Hard-To-Explain English Language Quirks

by Kevin Burton    I went to college to become a journalist. But before I got there I was, briefly, an English teacher. And I had to defend some of the nonsense you will see below.    English got to be the dominant language of the world (the lingua franca for aviation, among other industries) …

Loud Arguments About Silent Letters

by Kevin Burton    When my parents issued me flash cards before kindergarten, I wondered why the work “knife” had a K in it when it didn’t do anything.     All these years later I hear from Merriam-Webster that not just e’s and k’s but all the letters of the English alphabet are silent at …

All The Letters Can Be Silent? Shut Up!

by Kevin Burton    Silent E is so famous it has a song, we all know about that one. We know how the letter e at the end of man, changes the word to mane, for example.    The silent e turns the a from short to long.    But did you know all the …