Silent Letters

Today, Saint Pepsi and I got into a an arguement about silent letters in words.  I pronounced the "h" in herb, where as I would not.  His claim, was that letters are in words for a reason (to be heard).  We argued.  I tried to prove that some letters just shouldn't be heard by going to dictionary.com and listening to audio of the word being spoken.  Turns out, we were both correct.  It appears British English tends to pronounce the "h" in herb while American English does not.  Then SP said that his way was more correct because the British are more articulate, which is crap!   

Then he dared me to find one word that had a silent letter that even the Brits don't use.  So I thought for a few minutes before finally declaring, 

"Oedipus!".  

SP never read "Oedipus Rex" so he had no idea that "Oedipus" was a fictional character in a play.  When he found out, he said, 

"Names don't count."  

So I described to him the "oedipus complex" but he wasn't biting. 

 "It has to be a silent consonant."  

So, I thought and thought.   

"Doubt!  No one says the "b" in that word,"  

I triumphed.  But I got shut down again.  

"It needs to be at the beginning of the word.  The "h" in herb should be pronounced because it is a consonant at the beginning of a word, " he argued.  

"FINE!"  I shouted.  

Minutes passed, then finally, 

"Pneumonia!  Pneumonia has a silent "p" at the beginning of the word and even the British don't use it," 

I gloated.  SP wallowed in defeat, 

"You win.  You found ONE word.  Big fucking de-"  

"OH! And "knock"  and "knee"...  and "knit" and... "knob" ... and tons of other words that start with "k-n".  

So I won that verbal war. I'm prepared for more battle.

...and that's how I became a man.