Grab Bag for Word Nerds, Part One: The Silent Treatment: Words Plagued by Silent Letters

The scourge of spellers, silent letters are often a stumbling block when learning how to write in English. To the modern eye, it's unclear what these letters are doing in the words in question, and learners sometimes simply have to memorize them. But the silent letters are very often hidden remnants of how the words passed through different languages on their way to English. Here are 20 words that prove that English spelling is far from rational