In a message dated 98-02-08 13:40:01 EST, Brent writes: << Au contraire. "silent" means "no sound". In fact the real sound of that x phoneme (oftentimes written 'ch') is even greater than 'h', which is not silent in any event. If the x in Texas were silent, the pronunciation would have been described as "Te-as" ("Tay-as"), but it's not. >> Gracias Brent! peg e