The Unpronounceable

Sometimes I hate words. Not writing them—that I kind of like. Saying them. Pronouncing them, to be specific. As someone who has spent the past three years reading different etymologies, I get that spellings are created more by history than common sense (I’m looking at you, silent letters). But sometimes it’s just ridiculous.

Gauge

An A and a U. Seems like it would be pronounced like it is in applaud or haunt. But no. It’s like the U isn’t even there. It took me until high school to figure out that it was supposed to be pronounced like the end of engage. I still say it the other way in my head, though.

Hearth

It’s supposed to be Har with a Th at the end, not a Earth with an H up front. Frankly, I blame this one entirely on the ea digraph. It has way too many pronunciations to be reasonable.

Flaccid

I always pronounced this “flassid”. I never even thought about how if you drop the Fl and put ent at the end, you get the word accident, which I always say “aksident”. But pronouncing it “flaksid” sounds weird to me. Thankfully, the pronunciation is acceptable either way, so I’m sticking with flassid.

Salve

What does the middle letter look like to you? Because to me, it looks like an l, which means it has an L sound. But nooooo. It’s silent, lah-dee-frickin-dah. The British, showing great common sense, do pronounce it “sahlve”, however Americans say “sahve”. I’m going to have to either get people to start saying it with an L or move to England because this is unacceptable.

Informal poll time: How do you pronounce flaccid? How do you pronounce salve (and what country are you from)? Are there any words that have spellings and pronunciations you can’t reconcile? Answer in the comments.