133: Ph and F Apr 20, 2015

There are quite a number of oddly spelled words in English, with silent letters up the wazoo and, vowels each having many different possible sounds, and the word 'phlegm' is certainly no exception. This word came to Middle English from the French word, 'fleume'. The reason that 'phlegm' has the silent 'g' and a 'ph' rather than the 'f', like in the French spelling is because the spelling was changed in the 16th century due to due to association with the Latin word, 'phlegma' which meant ‘clammy moisture’, and from Greek 'phlegma' which meant ‘inflammation’.