I wonder why the w in sword is silent.
2007-09-30 08:08:06 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
As a word is commonly used, its pronunciation, usage, and conjugation begin to change over time. For instance, be conjugates to such things as "am" and "been" because it is a very commonly used words. The word sword comes from Old English (sweord) and has been used for hundreds of years. Over time, people got lazy and contracted it to its current pronunciation. "Can't" was brought about by people getting lazy while saying "cannot". Think of "sword" kind of in the same manner.
2007-09-30 08:19:31 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 1⤋
It is..!!!! Maybe in some cases it depends on the accent.
Merriam-Webster's Dictionary:
lord = pronunciation: 'lòrd
sword = pronunciation: 'sòrd
Thefreedictionary.com:
lord = (lôrd)
sword = (sôrd)
wordwebonline.com:
lord = lord
sword = sord
Using different phonetic alphabets, they all agree that 'lord' and 'sword' have exactly the same sound.
Finding a reason why words in English are pronounced the way they are is almost impossible.
Can you say why "live" is pronounced different in these two sentences?
I "LIVE" in the US
a "LIVE" TV program
.
2007-09-30 08:30:16 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
no W sound. Maybe it was meant to be pronounced (as in the related German word Schwert--'shvert'), but it is not pronounced today. Did she also pronounce the W in two? The word knight was once pronounced closer to k-ni(short i)-(ch as in German) t, and we now only pronounce the n-i (long i)-t. English pronounciation and spelling are not very closely related!
2016-03-13 06:26:10 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because, originally, it wasn't silent. A British accent tends to slightly pronounce the "w", like "soo-ord". Only the American accent totally dropped this and says "sord".
2007-09-30 08:34:33 · answer #4 · answered by FUNdie 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
It is indeed silent, and that's because spoken language evolves faster than written language. In Old English, the "w" was definitely pronounced. It's like the "gh" endings in enough and through. Originally they were pronounced (enough in German is genug, and both g's are pronounced; from this we can see that English lost not only the final g sound, but also the initial one). In short, languages evolve.
2007-09-30 08:14:47 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 5⤊ 1⤋
sometimes we'll have to aacept things as they are [seeing that they're grammatical rules]
unlike the words:' write- wreck, etc....' thw 'w' IS silent , however; in 'sword' it is pronounced but lightly, as i said because it is one of Eng's grammatical rules that we have to accept.
2007-09-30 10:26:49 · answer #6 · answered by Judy 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, it is!.. I don't think there's a real reason.. it's just the way people started pronouncing it.
onetwothree's answer was very informative.
.
2007-09-30 08:43:16 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
it is! you dont pronounce the w therefore its silent. But i cant tell u why, i just felt the need to argue =]
2007-09-30 08:11:23 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 5⤊ 2⤋
It's kinda silent like the "p" in swimming.
2007-09-30 08:23:54 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 6⤋
it wasn't back in the day, accents changed it
2007-09-30 08:11:03 · answer #10 · answered by AAA 3 · 2⤊ 2⤋