The silent E is both very common and extremely useful in English spelling. Just placing a silent E at the end of word creates a whole new word with a different sound. The only problem is to know when to retain and when to drop the silent E when adding a suffix to the word. I cover this problem in two of my books: The Complete Guide to English Spelling Rules and also in the upcoming How to Teach English Spelling.
Some critics say the silent E is overused. They say it should be eliminated from such words as blue and true. This idea irritates me because it's obvious that those critics are not familiar with the spelling rule that applies to words that end in U.
The rule is quite simple:
With the exception of you and thou, no commonly used English word ends in U. Any word that does end in U is an exotic import or a borrowed word: menu, guru, and jujitsu.
The same rule also applies to V. There just aren’t any commonly used English words that end in V. Give, live, love, have, glove, and serve all have to have the silent E after the V.
A small group of short words, fewer than a dozen, end in O followed by the silent E: toe, hoe, and foe.
Some say that the silent E rule is illogical. That may be true, but the silent E does have the benefit of uniformity, and young children and foreign students learning English accept it quickly and find it to be no big problem.
Some critics say the silent E is overused. They say it should be eliminated from such words as blue and true. This idea irritates me because it's obvious that those critics are not familiar with the spelling rule that applies to words that end in U.
The rule is quite simple:
With the exception of you and thou, no commonly used English word ends in U. Any word that does end in U is an exotic import or a borrowed word: menu, guru, and jujitsu.
The same rule also applies to V. There just aren’t any commonly used English words that end in V. Give, live, love, have, glove, and serve all have to have the silent E after the V.
A small group of short words, fewer than a dozen, end in O followed by the silent E: toe, hoe, and foe.
Some say that the silent E rule is illogical. That may be true, but the silent E does have the benefit of uniformity, and young children and foreign students learning English accept it quickly and find it to be no big problem.
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