lack of "gh"

Grammar lesson: in defence of "ight."

In a culture of short attention spans and advertising-driven communications, you see a lot of abbreviated words. One of the most grating is the use of "ite" to replace "ight." Like lite beer, tonite only, etc.

The part that gets to me is that people see the words in print and from that incorrectly assume that this is the correct spelling.

Sure, maybe in a hundred years or so it WILL be the correct spelling, as our language evolves and spellings change. However, for the time being, it's NOT correct, and it MUST be stopped, lest I be forced to pull my leg hairs out one-by-one with a rusty pair of pliers. Ugh. (erm, I mean "U".)

Wondering why there are so many silent GH's in English?

Well, according to Dr. Goodword's Language Blog:

"The sound represented by the silent GH in English was once a [k] in Proto-Indo-European (PIE—as mentally nutritious as it is delicious). That sound became [kh] over the course of the development of ancient Germanic languages like Old English. We still find this sound, as mentioned before, in Dutch, German, and Scots English. In most dialects of English, however, it reduced itself to [h], a sound so slight that has disappeared altogether from English everywhere except at the beginning of words. However, although the sound has disappeared, we continue spelling it.

So words in English containing the Silent GH mark the spot where a real sound once stood. While English speakers are not at all resistent to changing their ways, we are very reluctant to change the way we spell our words..."

It's the same reason we have a silent k at the beginning of knight and knife. Because once upon a time, they were "K-niggict" and "k-niff". And doesn't that make for a more interesting word? By keeping the letters in, you learn something about the history of the word, which makes you appreciate the evolution of language as words wax and wane in popularity and usage.