???

Gmail said, "The conversation that you requested could not be loaded."

Shows what I know about computers. Go to the "Now I Know" site and search for "Why we have the silent "b"

Yep, mine said the same thing.

Try [url=https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1417,00.html#:~:text=WE%20OWE%20the%20silent%20'b,%2Dclamber%2C%20crumb%2Dcrumble.]this link,[/url] from The Guardian.

Thanks, hab, that link worked for me.

Interesting, yet not surprising. You see much of the same sort of thing in French. Sometimes in French they change the spelling to reflect pronunciation & give you an accent mark to indicate what used to be pronounced (like the circonflexe to show there was an "s" there once), but usually you're on your own, as in English.

Gotta love languages like Spanish w/ a longtime "Royal Academy" continually updating orthography to reflect pronunciation! The Académie Française, tho ancient, seems resistant to that mission. I think they are more about preservation than user-friendliness... And I'm assuming the English, like the Americans, are all about "figure it out yourself."

Thanks for finding it, Hab! I subscribe to The Guardian, but somehow missed it there.