What is the origin of the silent 'w' before 'r' in English words such as 'wrap', 'write', 'wring' etc?

• BEFORE the 17th century the 'w' was pronounced. Other letters ('g' in gnaw and 'k' in knee, for example) fell silent too, but were trapped in the spelling as written English fossilised into its present form. They are all of ancient Germanic origin and were pronounced in Anglo-Saxon. German, which is generally spelt as spoken, writes reissen (cognate with 'write') without the original 'w' and nagen (cognate with 'gnaw') without the original 'g', but has kept the 'k' in knie because it is pronounced. Other letters fell silent in English before they could be fossilised, and so disappeared. Anglo-Saxon spelt 'loaf', 'neck' and 'rough' with an initial 'h' as hlaf, hnecca and hrioh, but it was dropped around the thirteenth century when no longer pronounced . If that 'h' had been pronounced a few centuries longer, we would no doubt write 'hloaf', 'hneck' and 'hrough' today. The 'wh' words lie in between. Anglo-Saxon wrote 'when' and 'white' as 'hwenne' and 'hwite', and some accents (e.g. Scots) still say 'hw'. Later 'wh' was reversed to match 'ch', 'gh', 'sh' and 'th'. There is currently great concern about literacy but little improvement is possible until our spelling is defossilised, and such absurdities as 'wr', 'gn' and 'kn' reduced to the letters we actually speak. The Simplified Spelling Society is campaigning for English spelling to be modernised (secretary: Bob Brown, 39 Chepstow Rise, Croydon CRO 5LX. Tel: 081-686 3793).

  Christopher Upward, Editor-in Chief, Simplified Spelling Society, Birmingham 14.