Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 June 30

= June 30 =

Verbs ending in silent t
The English verbs article promotes silent t as a special ending of a verb with a stressed final syllable ending with a single vowel followed by a single consonant. If my understanding of it is right, it means:

Look at the word sit. Its -ing for is sitting. The purpose of the tt is to keep the i short; if the t were not doubled it would be siting (which has a long i sound.)

But per what the article says about silent t's, if we had a verb spelled sit that is pronounced see, its -ing form would be siting.

Does English have lots of verbs that meet this criterion?? Georgia guy (talk) 01:38, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * We don't have a lot of them; those that we do have are likely to be French loanword nouns converted to verbs. The adjective "balletic" is an instance of such a spelling... AnonMoos (talk) 01:41, 30 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Some (most?) people pronounce the verb ricochet with a silent t. I expect its -ing form then to be ricocheting. Indeed, one can find it spelled that way, and after about 1930 this has become the dominant form. I couldn't think of any other verb ending on a silent t. --Lambiam 07:46, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * And of course "ricochet" is from French. As emphasized by the name of the comic strip character Rick O'Shay. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:21, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Crochet is another, also French. Alansplodge (talk) 11:19, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * And for this verb the final t is always silent (unlike in the archaic variant ). --Lambiam 20:49, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should ask Priti Patel to explain all of her verbs ending in silent g?Martinevans123 (talk) 21:08, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Trying to fit in with the huntin', shootin', and fishin' gang? DuncanHill (talk) 21:11, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
 * "Some (most?) people pronounce the verb 'ricochet' with a silent 't'"? I've never heard anyone pronounce the "t" in "ricochet". --Khajidha (talk) 11:40, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * "/ ˌrɪk əˈʃeɪ, ˈrɪk əˌʃeɪ or, especially British, ˈrɪk əˌʃɛt /". --Lambiam 16:27, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * It might be "especially British", but nonetheless rare. Seconding Khajidha, I'm an ageing Brit, have lived in Scotland, the Isle of Wight, and several other places in between (as well as abroad), and have never heard anyone sound the final 't'. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.15} 2.122.0.163 (talk) 17:28, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * During the first World War, the spelling "ricochetted" was about five times as popular as the spelling "ricocheted" in British English, implying that the final [t] was commonly pronounced then. --Lambiam 23:06, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Debut comes to mind, though like ricochet it is also a French loanword. The final t in the otherwise similar "rebut" is not silent. 2601:648:8200:970:0:0:0:23D0 (talk) 11:57, 2 July 2021 (UTC)