words like write and wrong. This was reduced to just , apparently during the 17th century. An intermediate stage may have been an with lip rounding. As a result of this reduction, pairs of words like rap and wrap, rite and write, etc. are homophones in practically all varieties of Modern English. They remain distinct in the Doric dialect of Scots, where the wr- cluster is pronounced . Alexander John Ellis reported distinctions between w and wr in Cumbria and in several varieties of Scots in the nineteenth century. Old English also had a cluster , which reduced to during Middle English. For example, the word lisp derives from Old English wlisp(ian). Reduction of Middle English initial is reduced in modern English to , making pairs like knot/not and knight/night homophones. The cluster was spelled cn- in Old English; this changed to kn- in Middle English, and this spelling survives in Modern English, despite the loss of the sound. Cognates in other Germanic languages usually still sound the initial . For example, the Old English ancestor of knee was cnēo, pronounced , and the cognate word in Modern German is Knie, pronounced . Most dialects of English reduced the initial cluster to relatively recently; the change seems to have taken place in educated English during the 17th century. Several German-language grammars of English from the late 17th and early 18th centuries transcribed English kn- as tn-, dn-, implying that a stage of assimilation (or perhaps debuccalization to ) preceded that of complete reduction. The cluster is preserved in some Scots dialects, and Alexander John Ellis recorded it in parts of the Northern English counties of Cumbria and Northumberland in the late nineteenth century. Reduction of /ɡn/ The Middle English initial cluster is reduced to in Modern English. Like the reduction of , this seems to have taken place during the seventeenth century. The change affected words like gnat, gnostic, gnome, etc., the spelling with gn- being retained despite the loss of the sound. The cluster is preserved in some Scots dialects. The song The Gnu jokes about this silent g and other silent letters in English. In fact the g in gnu may always have been silent in English, since this loanword did not enter the language until the late 18th century. The trumpeter Kenny Wheeler wrote a composition titled Gnu High, a pun on "new high". S-cluster reductions In