But the silent letters are very often hidden remnants ... Sign up Greek-derived words often feature tricky consonant clusters that don't get pronounced that way in English. This word (from Greek ...

For example 'ph' makes an 'f' noise. But some spellings in the English language really don't make much sense, filled with silent consonants and unnecessary vowels that sometimes even trip adults up.

And they're everywhere. According to the author of The Word Snoop Ursula Dubosarky, about 60 per cent of English words contain silent letters, and they can be consonants as well as silent vowels.