Which letter is silent in the word "Scent", the S or the C?

Same question applies to 'scissors' - but why, in that case, is a double 's' pronounced as a 'z' in the middle?

And then of course there is the age old question: is the 'p' silent in 'swimming pool'?
 
Well if you want an actual ACTUAL answer:

Scent

Late Middle English (denoting the sense of smell): from Old French sentir ‘perceive, smell,’ from Latin sentire . The addition of -c- (in the 17th century) is unexplained.
So the c is silent and also shouldn't really be there.

However:
SC might be like TH for example. You can’t say that one is silent because they are inseparable in order to make a particular sound
 
It sounds different when I say “scent”, “cent” or “sent” so I’d say neither are silent.
 
The c is silent, because the original form of the word is sentire. Experts say that the c is of unknown origin, but my guess is that it would be related to the time when English was impacted by the Scandinavian languages.
 
GlennO said:
I'm always amazed that anyone can learn english as a second language.
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Yeah, I’ve been learning Korean and their Hangul alphabet pairs up beautifully with the language and is really helpful for pronunciation... Written English is a mess by comparison. I have no idea how non-native’s cope with learning it. Lol
 
GlennO said:
I'm always amazed that anyone can learn english as a second language.
Click to expand...

As Spanish, I am making Thai my fourth language (second is Catalan, third is English), and I find Thai pronunciation and grammar easier than English. Even the writing is more straightforward (once you learn the Thai alphabet characters)
 
Rane said:
Yeah, I’ve been learning Korean and their Hangul alphabet pairs up beautifully with the language and is really helpful for pronunciation... Written English is a mess by comparison. I have no idea how non-native’s cope with learning it. Lol
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My second language is German (I'm English and German... maybe) and it's really quite easy to read and pronounce German words because they're very phonetic. The same combination of letters always sound the same in German. Never mind that they love to smash together compound words that are longer than the alphabet. If you can see all the letters, you know how to pronounce a word.

There's nothing in German like that English disaster that Doc Rock and I barfed up in front of y'all.
 
GlennO said:
I'm always amazed that anyone can learn english as a second language.
Click to expand...

And yet so many people do, since it's the de facto world language of science, technology, and commerce.

(For now. Let's check back in 25 years...)

I work in the science research world, and I stand in awe of the people in that gig who have to learn English in the second decade of their life just to do their job.
 
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