The Debate over H: the 'istory of aitch
November 7, 2013 8:06 AM Subscribe
Why H is the most contentious letter in the alphabet is a quick overview of the letter H. Though the visual form of the letter has been pretty stable in Medieval writing, it's the pronunciation of the letter that has caused issues, from Catullus' poem mocking Arrius's addition of H's to words, to the Irish clash of Protestants and Catholics including how each group pronounced H. Such regional and generational shifts in pronunciation were of interest to the British Library, as documented in their Evolving English exhibit, which includes an online "mapped" catalog of sound clips (previously).
by 1858, if I wanted to speak correctly, I should have said "erb", "ospital" and "umble".
Wait, the "h" in herb* is supposed to be aspirated?
*not Herb(ert), haha you guys
posted by psoas at 8:19 AM on November 7, 2013
Wait, the "h" in herb* is supposed to be aspirated?
*not Herb(ert), haha you guys
posted by psoas at 8:19 AM on November 7, 2013
Wait, the "h" in herb* is supposed to be aspirated?
What do you mean by "supposed to be"? Per the post, it depends where you're from.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:22 AM on November 7, 2013
What do you mean by "supposed to be"? Per the post, it depends where you're from.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:22 AM on November 7, 2013
"You say 'erbs, and we say herbs… because there's a fucking 'h' in it!'" - Eddie Izzard, Dress to Kill
"It seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable, in which it is always sounded with a full breath, except in heir, herb, hostler, honour, humble, honest, humour, and their derivatives." - Samuel Johnson, A Grammar of the English Tongue
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:23 AM on November 7, 2013
"It seldom, perhaps never, begins any but the first syllable, in which it is always sounded with a full breath, except in heir, herb, hostler, honour, humble, honest, humour, and their derivatives." - Samuel Johnson, A Grammar of the English Tongue
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:23 AM on November 7, 2013
As The 10th Regiment of Foot noted, it can be.
For further inquiry into adding and dropping H's, Wikipedia has a page section on the topic.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:24 AM on November 7, 2013
For further inquiry into adding and dropping H's, Wikipedia has a page section on the topic.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:24 AM on November 7, 2013
"You say 'erbs, and we say herbs… because there's a fucking 'h' in it!'" - Eddie Izzard, Dress to Kill
From the above cited Wikipedia page: "Words borrowed from French frequently begin with the letter h but not with the sound /h/. Examples include hour, heir, hono(u)r and honest."
posted by filthy light thief at 8:25 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
From the above cited Wikipedia page: "Words borrowed from French frequently begin with the letter h but not with the sound /h/. Examples include hour, heir, hono(u)r and honest."
posted by filthy light thief at 8:25 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
What do you mean by "supposed to be"? Per the post, it depends where you're from.
I can understand dropping the "h" in all three (herb, hospital, humble) and I come from an area--central U.S.--where only the latter two are pronounced (following f.l.t.'s cited French-origin rule), but wasn't aware that it was standard anywhere to pronounce all three. Lesson learned.
posted by psoas at 8:34 AM on November 7, 2013
I can understand dropping the "h" in all three (herb, hospital, humble) and I come from an area--central U.S.--where only the latter two are pronounced (following f.l.t.'s cited French-origin rule), but wasn't aware that it was standard anywhere to pronounce all three. Lesson learned.
posted by psoas at 8:34 AM on November 7, 2013
Ironic that the letter H came to us from the French, given how Quebecois have never pronounced one in their lives.
posted by rocket88 at 8:34 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by rocket88 at 8:34 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
And H aspiré still exists in French, where the H is mute but the liaison rules don't apply: Les Halles in Paris tends to trip up visitors with this.
posted by holgate at 8:42 AM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by holgate at 8:42 AM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
Jesus Haitch Christ, the Protestants and Catholics have to ruin everything, don't they?
posted by spicynuts at 8:44 AM on November 7, 2013
posted by spicynuts at 8:44 AM on November 7, 2013
So why the 'eck does Spanish still even 'ave the letter "ache" when it never makes any sound?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:51 AM on November 7, 2013
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:51 AM on November 7, 2013
The French TV station I was listening to last night promised a late film called "dee ar". Which was unknown to me up until the point when he mentioned it featured Bruce Willis.
posted by rongorongo at 8:52 AM on November 7, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by rongorongo at 8:52 AM on November 7, 2013 [5 favorites]
Actually it's always Jesus H Christ, but sometimes the H is silent.
posted by Billiken at 9:05 AM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by Billiken at 9:05 AM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
Little known fact: the "H" in "Jesus H Christ" stands for "Tiberius".
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:10 AM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 9:10 AM on November 7, 2013 [4 favorites]
It is also the dreadfully confusing (uppercase) letterform which stands for something completely different in the Roman, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets. No other letter is quite as good a false friend across the 3 alphabets, nor one quite as unintuitively different.
Roman 'H' you know, but very differently according to which Roman alphabet using language is your most natural;
Greek 'H' is a vowel with an 'ee' sound;
Cyrillic 'H' is the same consonant as a Roman 'N'.
posted by ambrosen at 9:42 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Roman 'H' you know, but very differently according to which Roman alphabet using language is your most natural;
Greek 'H' is a vowel with an 'ee' sound;
Cyrillic 'H' is the same consonant as a Roman 'N'.
posted by ambrosen at 9:42 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
I thought for sure we'd be talking about 'Cool Whip'
posted by unixrat at 9:55 AM on November 7, 2013
posted by unixrat at 9:55 AM on November 7, 2013
H is the most contentious letter in the alphabet
My arse!
posted by Herodios at 9:56 AM on November 7, 2013
My arse!
posted by Herodios at 9:56 AM on November 7, 2013
I thought for sure we'd be talking about 'Cool Whip'
See also: wine vs whine
posted by filthy light thief at 10:06 AM on November 7, 2013
See also: wine vs whine
posted by filthy light thief at 10:06 AM on November 7, 2013
Ironic that the letter H came to us from the French, given how Quebecois have never pronounced one in their lives.
Well... that's not quite right.
posted by Killick at 10:09 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
Well... that's not quite right.
posted by Killick at 10:09 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]
H is the most contentious letter in the alphabet
My arse!
And the harse you rode in on!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 10:11 AM on November 7, 2013
My arse!
And the harse you rode in on!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 10:11 AM on November 7, 2013
I don't know about the alphabet but he was by far the worst one in Steps.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 10:40 AM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by the quidnunc kid at 10:40 AM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
Les Halles in Paris tends to trip up visitors with this
Damn, I've been pronouncing that with the liaison. And if I had known about all the recent construction, I could have saved myself a lot of hassle and avoided the linguistic faux pas!
posted by malocchio at 10:46 AM on November 7, 2013
Damn, I've been pronouncing that with the liaison. And if I had known about all the recent construction, I could have saved myself a lot of hassle and avoided the linguistic faux pas!
posted by malocchio at 10:46 AM on November 7, 2013
So why the 'eck does Spanish still even 'ave the letter "ache" when it never makes any sound?
Sentimental value? After the 'h' sound migrated over to the letter 'x' (booting out the 'sh' sound), I guess they just felt sorry for it.
Still doesn't explain how Huaxyacac ended up as Oaxaca though.
posted by Panjandrum at 11:42 AM on November 7, 2013
Sentimental value? After the 'h' sound migrated over to the letter 'x' (booting out the 'sh' sound), I guess they just felt sorry for it.
Still doesn't explain how Huaxyacac ended up as Oaxaca though.
posted by Panjandrum at 11:42 AM on November 7, 2013
Panjandrum: Still doesn't explain how Huaxyacac ended up as Oaxaca though.
Not as catchy as "New York used to be New Amsterdam," but it'll work.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:51 AM on November 7, 2013
Not as catchy as "New York used to be New Amsterdam," but it'll work.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:51 AM on November 7, 2013
In some regions (but only some regions) of Newfoundland, haitches are regularly dropped. You get an aircut; you breathe the hair. The level of regional . . . granularity, I suppose, can be quite precise ("You drop your haitch in 'olyrood, and pick it up in h'Avondale"), and there is a complex hierarchy about how this relates to prestige. My mom came from the northern shore of Bonavista Bay, where haitches get dropped, but we lived in Placentia, where haitches are never dropped. She had mostly trained herself to speak "correctly," but was terribly embarrassed whenever she occasionally "slipped up." When I got old enough to realize this was kind of awful (and to feel awful myself about the times, as a child, when I'd laugh at her haitches), I tried to talk her into not feeling that shame, and letting her dialect come out however it wanted to come out. But a lifetime of ideological programming is hard to undo.
posted by erlking at 12:06 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by erlking at 12:06 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
Sentimental value? After the 'h' sound migrated over to the letter 'x' (booting out the 'sh' sound), I guess they just felt sorry for it.
Depending on where you are in (the country of) Mexico, first it migrated to the J and later to the X. Mexico used to be spelled Mejico in official papers. In some contexts and locales the x is stil a "sh", for example Ixtepec. Incidentally, Oaxaca would be pronounced "hua-shaka" in Zapotec.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:07 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
Depending on where you are in (the country of) Mexico, first it migrated to the J and later to the X. Mexico used to be spelled Mejico in official papers. In some contexts and locales the x is stil a "sh", for example Ixtepec. Incidentally, Oaxaca would be pronounced "hua-shaka" in Zapotec.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:07 PM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]
'oly 'ell
posted by ChuckRamone at 12:16 PM on November 7, 2013
posted by ChuckRamone at 12:16 PM on November 7, 2013
Cool wHip
What?
Cool wHip
Why so much emphasis on the H?
posted by stormpooper at 7:32 AM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
What?
Cool wHip
Why so much emphasis on the H?
posted by stormpooper at 7:32 AM on November 8, 2013 [1 favorite]
So why the 'eck does Spanish still even 'ave the letter "ache" when it never makes any sound?
Basically what happened is that when the Spanish started writing dictionaries, they rediscovered Latin spellings and started using them, even when they didn't match the pronunciation, for example all the words spelled with V instead of B. I read about some examples where they even got the etymology of a spanish word wrong and 'corrected' it to the wrong latin spelling, but I can't remember what words they were now.
Although many initial H's were from Latin 'f's (hacer/facer), and used to be pronounced as h, but now aren't.
posted by empath at 9:53 PM on November 12, 2013
Basically what happened is that when the Spanish started writing dictionaries, they rediscovered Latin spellings and started using them, even when they didn't match the pronunciation, for example all the words spelled with V instead of B. I read about some examples where they even got the etymology of a spanish word wrong and 'corrected' it to the wrong latin spelling, but I can't remember what words they were now.
Although many initial H's were from Latin 'f's (hacer/facer), and used to be pronounced as h, but now aren't.
posted by empath at 9:53 PM on November 12, 2013
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posted by filthy light thief at 8:16 AM on November 7, 2013 [5 favorites]