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Silent E

From Teflpedia

Silent e or silent final e is a spelling pattern in English that has 5 uses that can be exemplified with lake (a as /eɪ/), office (c as /s/), love (words don’t end in v), handle (at least one vowel per syllable), and goose (to mark the word as a singular noun).[1]

Magic e[edit | edit source]

See main article Magic e

English vowel letters AEIOU can be classified as having "a long sound" and "a short sound". See So-called “short” and “long” vowels. They also have more sounds, but the convention is as follows.

A E I O U
1. Short sound trap /æ/ dress /e/ kit /ɪ/ lot /ɒ/ strut /ʌ/
2.a Long sound or "name sound" face /eɪ/ theme /iː/ price /aɪ/ bone /əʊ/ cute /juː/, flute /uː/
2.b Long sound before "r" care /eə/ here /ɪə/ fire /aɪə/ store /ɔː/, /oə/ in some accents cure /jʊə/

In the first line each vowel has its "normal" sound, a short monophthong. In the second line each vowel has the same sound as the name of the letter in the English alphabet. The sounds of the second line are longer than the ones of the first line.

"Magic e" (silent e at the end of the word) makes the vowel "say its name",[2] or "makes the vowel long", which should be understood as moving in the table from the first row to the second, and not as lengthening the vowel. What is meant by “long E” is not that /iː/ is a long version of /e/, but actually "the long sound of the letter E".

Similarly, what is meant by “short I” is not that /ɪ/ is a short version of /aɪ/, but actually "the short sound of the letter I".

Therefore, "the long vowels" actually means "the long sounds of vowel letters", and "the short vowels" are "the short sounds of vowel letters".

Note that in phonetics "long vowel" means literally a vowel that is long, i.e., /ɑː, iː, ɔː, uː/ or /ɜː/.

Examples:

rat vs rate - cap vs cape - can vs cane
bed - hotel - stem - then - get vs theme - scene - complete
bit vs bite - quit vs quite
dog - alcohol - shop - lot vs code - smoke - home - phone - suppose
cub vs cube - cut vs cute

The pattern vowel + consonant + “e” = long sound of the vowel is reliable enough to be taught. Examples of exceptions are: have - college - machine - gone - lettuce.

The converse pattern vowel + consonants = '’short sound of the vowel is less reliable, but should also be taught.

Magic e exceptionally works in other situations:

  • more than one consonant: able - change - paste; title; noble;
  • no consonant: Mae - sundae
  • no consonant (redundant): bee - fee; lie - tie; doe - toe; clue - issue

Make c and g soft[edit | edit source]

At the end of a word “c" sounds /k/ and “g" sounds /g/. A silent e makes “c" sound /s/ and “g" sound /dʒ/.

  • "ce": choice - experience - lettuce - office - once - police - service - since
Combined silent e and magic e: advice - face - price - place
Silent e and magic e with two consonants: scarce
  • “ge": charge - knowledge - language - large - manage - vegetable
Combined silent e and magic e: age - page - stage
Silent e and magic e with two consonants: change - range - strange

Keep u and v from being the last letter in a word[edit | edit source]

There are very few English words that end in "u" or "v.” Most (if not all) words that end in /v/ are spelled with "ve.” Many words that end in /uː/ are spelled with "ue.”

  • /v/: above - believe - curve - give - have - improve - involve - leave - live /lɪv/ - love - move - naive - receive - serve
Magic e: arrive - brave - drive - live /laɪv/ - save - shave - wave
  • /uː/:argue - blue - continue - due - issue - pursue - rescue - revenue - tissue - true - value

Exceptions:

  • /v/: mazeltov - of - perv - rev
  • "u": emu - flu - gnu - guru - haiku - Hindu - menu - Peru - snafu - tofu - you

Keep a syllable from having no vowels[edit | edit source]

  • article - couple - example - handle - little - middle - people - simple - single - trouble
Magic e with two consonants: able - acre - bible - cable - cradle - fable - idle - maple - noble - stable - table - title
  • all words with suffixes “able" and "ible": available, possible
  • UK spelling: centre - litre - theatre
Magic e with two consonants: fibre - metre

Exceptions. The following examples have a syllable with no vowel letters:

  • rhythm
  • some contractions: couldn’t - doesn’t - hasn’t - isn’t - shouldn’t - wouldn’t
  • all words ending in “sm": enthusiasm - mechanism
See also

IPA phonetic symbol [l̩]

Keep a singular word from ending in single s[edit | edit source]

  • Words that follow this rule
  • ending in /s/: goose - house - mouse - promise /ˈprɒmɪs/ - purchase - purpose - release
magic e: abuse - case - excuse - use
  • ending in /z/: cause - cheese - disease - noise - pause
magic e: nose - phase - phrase - rose - surprise
  • Words that don’t follow this rule: alias - bonus - bus - canvas - chaos - Christmas - focus - gas - genius - plus - status - tennis - versus - virus

See also: Advanced decoding exercises: /s/ vs /z/

Other function or no function[edit | edit source]

In these words, the silent e does not affect the pronunciation. Most of these have short vowels instead of long.

  • are - determine - discipline - ermine - famine - gone - imagine - medicine
  • breeze - freeze - maize - sneeze
  • catalogue - cheque - colleague - dialogue - giraffe - league - programmeBrE - tongue

Silent e changes the vowel, but it doesn’t make it long.

  • come - corporate - done - private - some

Silent e makes the vowel long but it isn’t a magic e because it doesn’t make the vowel say its name.

  • antique - gasoline - machine - magazine - submarine - technique - vaseline - unique

Misleading final e[edit | edit source]

In this section we show words in which the pattern single letter vowel + single consonant letter or digraph + letter e (VCe) does not make the vowel say its name.

“a” doesn’t sound /eɪ/ nor /eə/

  • /æ/: have
  • /ɑː/: are
  • /ə/: climate - corporate - estimate (n.) - purchase - private - separate (adj.)
  • /ɪ/: surface
  • ending in “age" as /ɪdʒ/: advantage - average - coverage - damage - encourage - garbage - image - manage - message - mortgage - package - passage - percentage - storage - village

"e" doesn’t sound /iː/ nor /ɪə/

  • /e/: allege
  • /ɪ/: college, privilege, sacrilege
  • /eə/: there, where
  • /ɜː/: were

"i" doesn’t sound /aɪ/

  • /ɪ/: determine - discipline - engine - examine - favourite - imagine - justice - medicine - notice - office - opposite - practice - premise - promise - service
  • ending in "ive" as /ɪv/: active - alternative - competitive - conservative - effective - expensive - executive - give - initiative - live (verb) - native - negative - objective - perspective - positive - relative - representative
  • /iː/:machine - magazine - police

"o" doesn’t sound /əʊ/

  • /ʌ/: above - become - come - income - love - none - one - some
  • /ɒ/ or /ɔː/AmE: gone
  • /uː/: approve - improve - lose - move - prove - remove - whose
  • /ə/: purpose - welcome

"u" doesn’t sound /uː/ nor /juː/

  • /ɪ/: lettuce - minute (60 seconds)
Pronounced final e

As this page shows, normally final e is silent. However there are words in which it has a sound.

  • as /iː/ or /ɪ/: apostrophe - catastrophe - Chile - coyote - karate - machete - recipe - sesame

Magic e in the middle of the word[edit | edit source]

Magic e is defined at the end of the word. In the middle of the word it works in the following cases:

Suffixes
  • like + -ed = liked; wide + -er = wider; wide + -est = widest; hope + -ful = hopeful; care + -less = careless; like + -ly = likely; state + -ment = statement; face + -s = faces;
Compound words
  • note + pad = notepad; sale + s + person = salesperson; time + table = timetable
Exceptions

Some compound words don’t have a magic e. Some words look compound but they are not.

  • dromedary /ˈdrɒmədəri/ is not drome + dary in English (it comes from Greek and Latin)
  • pomegranate /ˈpɒmɪɡrænɪt/ is not pome + granate in English (it comes from Old French)
  • sovereign /ˈsɒvrɪn/ is not sove + reign in English (it comes from soverain in Old French)
  • vine + yard = vineyard /ˈvɪnjərd/

References[edit | edit source]

  1. All About Learning Press, How to Teach Silent E. They list 4 uses, and then "keeps a singular word from ending in s.”
  2. DailyWritingTips, Five Spelling Rules for “Silent Final E”