Rhythm is often given as the longest common English word written without any of the standard vowels.

The longer version

Y is doing the work of a vowel here. The word came into English from Greek rhythmos by way of Latin and French, and its two y letters sound exactly like the i in the middle. Counting only a, e, i, o and u leaves the word with none, which is what makes the claim possible.

The same trick explains short words like myth, hymn and lynx, and longer ones such as syzygy, an astronomy term for three bodies falling into a line. Arguments over which word wins usually turn on what counts as common: rare technical terms stretch far longer than anything ordinary, while the letter w in words like cwm behaves much the same way in Welsh borrowings.

Where this entry sits

This category gathers small surprises about the English language, from odd spelling rules to words that quietly hide their own history. Expect palindromes, punctuation oddities, borrowed terms, and the strange ways writing systems record spoken speech. The full list sits on the Words and Language page, where every entry is listed in order.