Silent letters in English

A silent letter is a letter that is written in a word but not pronounced when the word is said. Silent letters can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. Some examples of silent letters include:
b: As in "subtle"
c: As in "indict"
d: As in "bridge"
g: As in "foreign"
h: As in "ghost"
k: As in "knee"
l: As in "calf"
m: As in "mnemonic"
n: As in "autumn"
p: As in "raspberry"
t: As in "castle"
u: As in "guide"
w: As in "answer"
Silent letters can help with:
Distinguishing homophones: For example, "in" and "inn", or "be" and "bee"
Showing long vowels: For example, "rid" and "ride"
Showing "hard" consonants: For example, "guest" and "gest"
Connecting different forms of the same word: For example, "resign" and "resignation"
The pronunciation of words with silent letters can vary by region. For example, the "h" in "herb" is silent in the US but pronounced in the UK. 
What makes a letter silent?
A letter is silent if it is not pronounced. It may be an auxiliary letter that works with another letter to form a new sound, such as 'ch' and 'th'; or it may be a dummy letter that is silent.
Some examples of silent letter rules are:
B is silent before 't' and after 'm'.
:subtle ,comb
C is silent after 's' and before 'i,' 'e,' or 'y.'
:Lucky, Scent, science
C is also silent in the combination 'ck.'
:Cock, lock
E is silent at the end of a word and makes the internal vowel a long vowel.
:Tie, Pie, lie
GH is silent at the middle or end of a word, and when preceded by an 'i' the 'i' is long.
:Thigh, Neigh, laugh
K is silent in the combination 'kn' at a word's beginning.
:Knot, Knee
N is silent in the digraph 'mn.'
:Damn, condemn
P is silent in the combination 'ps' at the beginning of a word.
:Psychology, Psalmist
W is silent in words beginning with 'wr' as well as in some other words.
:Write, wrist,

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