whose spelling in French and Middle English did not reflect their Greco-Latin origins were refashioned with etymological spellings in the 16th and 17th centuries: caracter became character and quire became choir. In some cases, a word's spelling clearly shows its Greek origin: If it includes ph pronounced as /f/ or y between consonants, it is very likely Greek, with some exceptions, such as nephew, cipher, triumph. If it includes rrh, phth, or chth; or starts with hy-, ps-, pn-, or chr-; or the rarer pt-, ct-, chth-, rh-, x-, sth-, mn-, tm-, gn- or bd-, then it is Greek, with some exceptions: gnat, gnaw, gneiss. Other exceptions include: ptarmigan is from a Gaelic word, the p having been added by false etymology; style is probably written with a 'y' because the Greek word 'column' (as in peristyle, 'surrounded by columns') and the Latin word stilus, 'stake, pointed instrument', were confused. trophy, though ultimately of Greek origin, did not have a but a in its Greek form, . Pronunciation In clusters such as ps-, pn-, and gn- which are not allowed by English phonotactics, the usual English pronunciation drops the first consonant (e.g., psychology) at the start of a word; compare gnostic [nɒstɪk] and agnostic [ægnɒstɪk]; there are a few exceptions: tmesis [t(ə)miːsɪs]. Initial x- is pronounced z. Ch is pronounced like k rather than as in "church": e.g., character, chaos. The consecutive vowel letters 'ea' are generally pronounced separately rather than forming a single vowel sound when transcribing a Greek εα, which was not a digraph, but simply a sequence of two vowels with hiatus, as in genealogy or pancreas (cf., however, ocean, ωκεανός); zeal (earlier zele) comes irregularly from the η in ζήλος. Some sound sequences in English are only found in borrowings from Greek, notably initial sequences of two fricatives, as in sphere. Most initial /z/ sounds are found in Greek borrowings. The stress on borrowings via Latin which keep their Latin form generally follows the traditional English pronunciation of Latin, which depends on the syllable structure in Latin, not in Greek. For example, in Greek, both ὑπόθεσις (hypothesis) and ἐξήγησις (exegesis) are accented on the antepenult, and indeed the penult has a long vowel in exegesis; but because the penult of Latin exegēsis is heavy by Latin rules, the accent falls on the penult in Latin and therefore in English. Inflectional endings and plurals Though many English