Editor's Corner

Last week, I was listening to a comedy show and the topic of spelling and “the silent k” came up. Today I received an article from Daily Writing Tips about the same topic, so I thought I’d share part of the article with you.

Kn- Words in English

A teaching site offers this rule for dealing with “silent k”: “k is often silent before n.”

An easier way to retain this information is to forget about “silent k” altogether. In a word like knot, k is not “a silent letter” at all, but part of the distinct phonogram kn.

The symbol kn is just another way to spell the sound /n/.

The spelling kn in a word like knave evolved from the Old English spelling cn, in which the “c” represented a guttural sound similar to the sound /k/. For example, the OE words from which our words knight, knot, and knave have evolved were spelled cniht, cnotta, and cnafa and pronounced with a hard first sound. The guttural sound eventually dropped out, leaving only the /n/ sound, but the old spelling has survived in kn.

Here are some familiar kn words.

Here are some more kn words that may not be as familiar:

knacker (noun): One whose trade it is to buy worn out, diseased, or useless horses, and slaughter them for their hides and hoofs, and for making dog’s-meat. Ex. “Jones will sell you to the knacker, who will cut your throat and boil you down for the foxhounds.” (Animal Farm, George Orwell)

knickerbockers (noun): loose-fitting breeches, gathered in at the knee, and worn by boys, sportsmen, and others who require a freer use of their limbs. Ex. “The child…was dressed in knickerbockers, with red stockings.” (Daisy Miller, Henry James)

knout (noun): a kind of whip or scourge, very severe and often fatal in its effects.

[KC – For the full article, click
here.]

I have to admit the word knout caught my eye, so I did a little more research. As stated, a knout is a kind of “scourge,” which is specifically a type of whip with more than one tail, similar to a cat-o-nine-tails. In many versions, the knout wasn’t just multi-tailed, but each tail was weighted with a metal tip. The most notorious use of the knout was in imperial Russia. Here is a drawing of one for you to wince at:

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

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