Unlocking the Mystery of the Silent 'E' in 'Come': A Word Detective's Adventure

1. 1 A Word Study Investigation

2. 2 It all started with a great question from Ace Detective Mubarak <come> Why is there an <e> at the end of the word <come>?

3. As an Ace Word Detective with credentials in Real Spelling, Mubarak knew it must be there for a reason! 3 <come> Hmm…What job is that <e> doing?

4. He considered some of the purposes of single, silent, <e> 4 • <come> To show that the vowel before it is ‘long’? To prevent a word from ending in <v>?

5. Knowing that there must be a reason he approached Ms Fiona 5 That’s a great question Mubarak! And guess what? She didn’t know the answer!

6. She went to some fellow word detectives… 6 And together they puzzled over Mubarak’s great question.

7. They had learned that when investigating any word it is useful to ask 4 questions. 7 • What does the word mean? • How is it built? • What other related words can you think of? • What are the sounds that matter?

8. Here are the answers they came to… 8 • What does the word mean? To move towards. <come>

9. 9 <come> 2.How is it built? They couldn’t identify any prefixes or suffixes so therefore they had to conclude <come> is a base word.

10. <come> 10 3. What other related words can you think of? • <came>, <some> and <same> • Origin is Old English and it was originally spelt <cum> • past tense of <come> is <came> • They wondered… • Is there a link to <some>, <same>? • <some> was originally spelt <sum> • Could the spelling <some> have been developed to avoid confusion with <sum>? • Is there a homophone for <come>? Yes - <cum> meaning ‘together with’ – like kitchen-cum-dining room.

11. <come> 11 4. What are the sounds that matter? • The phonemes in <come> are: / k / /ʌ/ / m / The graphemes are: <c> <o> <m> <e> This made sense … because…but

12. We had reached the limit of our understanding. 12 • It was time to call in the reinforcements… • We contacted Real Spellers worldwide via the Real Spellers Forum

13. Here’s what they told us… 13 The reason for the use of <o>: 1. to avoid confusion with <cum> 2. because in old script it was hard to differentiate the letters <u> and <m> It would have looked like this… Since <o> and <u> have a job share arrangement it made sense to spell the word <com>

14. And now… the answer to Mubarak’s original question… 14 • The reasons for the addition of the <e>: • To avoid confusion with a new English prefix <com-> - as in <combine>, <compose>. • To show a connection to the word <came> - which is the past tense of <come>

15. As Real Spellers well know - letters have several functions. Only one of which is to represent sounds or phonemes. 15 • One job that letters can do is to show links of meaning between words. • Do you know any other examples?

16. Letters showing connections of meaning. 16 • Words that have connections of meaning also have connections of spelling. Two • twenty, twelve, twin Talk • tale, told People population

17. Thanks to Mubarak Real Spellers worldwide are now talking about the great work that is going on at RVIS! 17 Fiona this is so wonderful Learning from a Grade 2 question I have learned so much just by following their hard work.  I have posted her email to me at this link on Real Spellers so that I can share the brilliance of what is going on at her school The question posed by your grade 2 student Is a wonderful inspiration as I prepare for work this morning. Please tell him that a teacher in Tennessee, USA has been scratching his head over it for hours.