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Usenet Posted 22 years ago
Usage

Dropping aitches everywhere

Found a fun book on Project Gutenberg called Enquire Within Upon Everything:

http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/0/7/6/10766/10766-8.txt

It has a lot of fascinating material on what was considered proper usage in
1894. As far as h's go, you were apparently only supposed to drop them inthe following words:
herb
heir
honesty
honour
hospital
hostler
hour
humour
humble (this surprised me, since 'umble sounds so Dickensian) humility
"In all other cases the H is to be sounded when it begins a word."

I guess they didn't happen to remember history (historian, historical), not to mention hotel, which I believe was h-less in RP until comparatively recently.
Anyway it got me to wondering, are there any words today which are correctly pronounced with an initial h in AmE but not in BrE?
  

Top answer

txt It has a lot of fascinating material ... [/nq] Not that I know of, but "herb" is an example that goes the other way (h in BrE, not in AmE). In his book "Language: the Basics", the late lamented Larry Trask has a fascinating discussion of the history of the letter h in English, which is not, he says, a success story.

— Usenet

  • txt It has a lot of fascinating material ...
  • [/nq] Not that I know of, but "herb" is an example that goes the other way (h in BrE, not in AmE).
  • In his book "Language: the Basics", the late lamented Larry Trask has a fascinating discussion of the history of the letter h in English, which is not, he says, a success story.
  • He says that h-dropping in general (not in the words you list, but in words where the dictionaries say it is pronounced) is still virtually unknown in AmE but becoming universal in BrE.
  • According to him there are vast tracts of England where h-dropping is normal.
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99 Answers
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[nq:1]Found a fun book on Project Gutenberg called Enquire Within Upon Everything: http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/0/7/6/10766/10766-8.txt It has a lot of fascinating material ... wondering, are there any words today which are correctly pronounced with an initial h in AmE but not in BrE?[/nq]
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[nq:1]Found a fun book on Project Gutenberg called Enquire Within UponEverything: http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/0/7/6/10766/10766-8.txt It has a lot of fascinating material on ... to wondering, are there any words today which arecorrectly pronounced with an initial h in AmE but not in BrE?[/nq]
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[nq:1]Found a fun book on Project Gutenberg called Enquire Within Upon Everything: http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/0/7/6/10766/10766-8.txt It has a lot of fascinating material ... in 1894. As far as h's go, you were apparently only supposed to drop them in the following words: humour[/nq]
When
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[nq:2]Found a fun book on Project Gutenberg called Enquire Within ... apparently only supposed to drop them in the following words:[/nq]
And 'ow about "homage"?

Ross Howard
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[nq:2] When the /h/ is followed by a consonant sound, ... it as /h&m/. I guess it's regional to some extent....[/nq]
[nq:1]And 'ow about "homage"?[/nq]
I would say sometimes Americans pronounce the h and sometimes we don't. Anyway, wouldn't that be another backwards example, or are you saying Brits always pronounce the h?
There may be other French-derived words that are pronounced diff
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[nq:2]Anyway it got me to wondering, are there any words today which arecorrectly pronounced with an initial h in AmE but not in BrE?[/nq]
[nq:1]Not that I know of. But what about "ham" at the ends of placenames? That's always /@m/ to me, though I've sometimes heard it as /h&m/. I guess it's regional to some extent..[/nq]
Americans almost always say Bucking-ham Palace, or the sheriff of No
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(Email Removed) (Athel Cornish-Bowden) wrote, in article (Email Removed):
[nq:1]In his book "Language: the Basics", the late lamented Larry Trask has a fascinating discussion of the history of the ... was unable to confirm his statement: as far as I could tell the great majority of people pronounced their h.[/nq]
Very OT, but...
I was born in England, but raised in Canada.
In my te
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[nq:1]Everything: usage in in not correctly[/nq]
[nq:2]And 'ow about "homage"?[/nq]
[nq:1]I would say sometimes Americans pronounce the h and sometimes we don't. Anyway, wouldn't that be another backwards example, or are you saying Brits always pronounce the h?[/nq]
Yes. Pronouced "HOMM-idge".

Ross Howard
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[nq:1]One of my jobs was to change the sayings on the sign, which was high enough up that I needed ... I drop one of those letters while changing the sayings. And yes, that one letter I dropped was an "H".[/nq]
You're taking the P.

Ray
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Jess Askin daybed:
[nq:1]humble (this surprised me, since 'umble sounds so Dickensian)[/nq]
Even today people continue to sing "An humble and a contrite heart". Still, I suppose old songs don't count.

Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au http://eepjm.newcas
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