Making Sense of the Silent Final E

The silent final E may sometimes cause quite the conundrum. WHY is that E there? English makes no sense! Right? Well, that final silent E wears quite a few hats, and I’m going to use this post to explain those hats in a way that makes sense. 

  1.  It makes the vowel say its name.

    This is the most commonly known reason as to why the silent final E exists. It makes the vowel immediately preceding the consonant(s) before the E say its long vowel sound. When you add an E to the end of the word tap, you get tape.

    More examples: cap + E = cape; kit + E + kite; & past + E + paste

  2. Every syllable must have a written vowel — even if it cannot be heard.

    Would you write the word puzzl ? No way! It would be puzzle, with a silent final E. That’s because the word puzzle is two syllables: puz-zle, and if that silent final E were missing, there would be no written vowel in the second syllable.

    More examples: little (lit-tle); pickle (pick-le); & giggle (gig-gle)

  3. C and G can soften to /s/ and /j/ when followed by an E (I or Y, too).

    Have you ever noticed that when you add a silent final E to the word hug to make huge, the short U transforms to a long U, but the sound of the G changes from a /g/ to a /j/? This is because when a G (or C) comes before an E, I, or Y, the sound can soften.

    More examples: practice & garage

    (In these examples, see how the same letter can appear twice in the same word, but because of the silent final E, the second time the same letter appears, it is pronounced differently.)

  4. English language words do not end in I, J, U, or V.

    If you’re like me, you are trying very hard right about now to think of any and all exceptions that you can. “What about hi, flu, sushi, and ski ?” you may ask. Hi and flu are abbreviations for hello and influenza. Sushi is a Japanese word and ski is Norwegian. The true exceptions are the pronouns I and you.

More examples: olive, tie, & blue.

I hope that these examples of the many hats that silent final E wears make at least one part of the English language seem a bit less illogical. When these general rules of thumb are better understood, the English language will seem just a bit less confusing!

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