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What is Silent in "Scent" the S or the C ?

What is Silent in "Scent" the S or the C ?
Take your pick. Doesn't matter
never thought of thaat wtf
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I've seen this before.
Reply 4
Original post by Boredom101
never thought of thaat wtf
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#ShowerThoughts
Original post by waleed99
What is Silent in "Scent" the S or the C ?


the c
Reply 6
Neither. You can hear both. Compare the sounds of the beginnings of silent and scent. Sound totally different.
Original post by ebickers
the c


I agree, mainly because the S is before the C.
scent and sent sound the same so the c?
Neither; scent is pronounced that way because there are two graphemes at the start which stand for the phoneme :undefined:. It's as if the word were spelt "ssent" - we wouldn't say that either "s" is silent if that were the case.
Reply 10
Original post by SuperHuman98
scent and sent sound the same so the c?

Scent and cent sound the same so the s?
Original post by waleed99
Scent and cent sound the same so the s?


Mindblown :redface:
Original post by Sonechka
Neither; scent is pronounced that way because there are two graphemes at the start which stand for the phoneme :undefined:. It's as if the word were spelt "ssent" - we wouldn't say that either "s" is silent if that were the case.


You could make that argument about any word with silent parts. Impressed you know about graphemes and phonemes, nonetheless.
Original post by Notorious_B.I.G.
You could make that argument about any word with silent parts. Impressed you know about graphemes and phonemes, nonetheless.


It depends on the word. One could say that there is a silent "e" in "hope" because no phoneme which would correspond to an "e" is pronounced where the grapheme occurs in the word (of course, the "e" contributes to the [oʊ], but the letter itself at the end of the word is silent).
(edited 6 years ago)
Neither. The are both pronounced :tongue:
Linguistics nerd here to try and answer your question.

The words <cent> <sent> and <scent> are homophones.

In Standard British English, the words are all pronounced /sɛnt/ (IPA)

I would argue that according to the written IPA form, the <c> is silent. If it was pronounced alongside the <s> then it would be /skɛnt/ (skent)

However, as <cent> is also /sɛnt/, we could look at how the <s> would be if it was pronounced alongside the <c>. Assuming <c> represents /s/, the two letters together would be /ssɛnt/ which would probably shorten to /sɛnt/

So surely, <c> is the silent letter. In the first instance, turning it into a sound would change the sound of the word. In the second instance, where we don't, it doesn't matter anyway.

And yes, I know this is bad logic and I am joking. :tongue:

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