Indictment is such a funny word, isn't it?

[conuly]

It's the silent c. Why does it even have a silent c? Or, for that matter, a long i? Dictator is pronounced as I'd expect, as is predict, all those other words from dicere. I always want to pronounce the c, and half the time my tongue moves into /k/ position, but I don't think I ever realize it, I just sorta stutter a bit.

But then, it's not a word that comes up often for most of us, is it?

It certainly has come up today, and for a minute I can believe everything is coming up roses. Mirabile dictu!

Comments

[oloriel]

I first came across the word in an seminar on English Religious Prose (of all things) and fortunately it was a classmate who had to read it out (and they already knew how to pronounce it). I would totally have fallen into the trap of saying it, you know, they way it's written because there honestly is no good reason why there should be a long i and silent c.

Which would have been super embarrassing because the prof teaching that seminar got really impatient if you didn't know how to pronounce the more-weirdly-than-usual spelled words. Found that out because that was also where I first encountered jail-spelled-as-gaol. :(

Anyway, finally some good news...