Silent Letters
- Thread starter Cornholio
- Start date
YOu mean Worster shirr
Heh. We used to do stuff like that in my High School Semantics class. I once wrote a little story using an 'alphabet' of pronunciations like that; I wish I still had it.Best example of spelling and pronunciation not even being in the same dimension is George Bernard Shaw's claim that 'fish' can be spelled as 'ghoti': 'gh' as in 'enough', 'o' as in 'women', and 'ti' as in 'nation'.
Silent letters are still commmon in German, but they usually have a function I think, specifically either clarifying or changing the pronounciation of a word, except for some foreign words. I think you may be right that that is one thing the first orthography reform did.
No, I'm pretty sure I meant what I said.
That's the way we pronounced it. Whether or not that was the correct pronunciation is another matter entirely.
^Easy for you to say. You're French.
I have discovered that, for some reason, I will drop the 'h' at the beginning of "historian".
I say, for example "I'm an historian," which comes out sounding like "I'm an 'istorian." I even write it that way, with "an".
I dont say "an history"--in fact, that sounds stupid and wrong to me. But I think I would say "an historical," if the opportunity arose--"an historical issue," for example.
Weird.
I have discovered that, for some reason, I will drop the 'h' at the beginning of "historian".
I say, for example "I'm an historian," which comes out sounding like "I'm an 'istorian." I even write it that way, with "an".
I dont say "an history"--in fact, that sounds stupid and wrong to me. But I think I would say "an historical," if the opportunity arose--"an historical issue," for example.
Weird.
It's to do with stressed and unstressed first syllables.
Yeah, I started a thread a while back about a/an before the letter H because I always thought it sounded retarded. Then we realized that Americans tend to pronounce the H sound, while most other English-speakers drop it.
A Historian vs. An 'istorian.
It's the same with lots of h words, like hotel. If it's stressed (sometimes a dialectal thing) then the h is sounded. If it isn't then it isn't. The word historian the stress is naturally on the second syllable, so many people will drop the h and put 'an' before it. The word history the stress is naturally on the first syllable, so the reverse happens.
Aussies don't drop the "h" sound generally. We used to get into trouble at school for dropping the "h".
The words are pronouced Hotel, Hospital, Herb, History, Historical etc.
Ah-HAH.
Thank you!
Of course, any such discussion is incomplete without a reference to the appropriate Monty Python sketch:
I assume you're referring to the habit of interpolating an R sound between words, so that "no idea of" sounds like "no idear of" and "I saw a movie" sounds like "I sore a movie." It's a way of making the words more distinctly separate and is not necessarily considered incorrect.
Just ask any Hahvad man!
Actually, I'm referring to something like the following:I assume you're referring to the habit of interpolating an R sound between words, so that "no idea of" sounds like "no idear of" and "I saw a movie" sounds like "I sore a movie." It's a way of making the words more distinctly separate and is not necessarily considered incorrect.
Just ask any Hahvad man!
"Just pahk the cah in the reah arear."
And I don't need to ask a Hahvad man, as I am myself a Hahvad woman.
All I can tell you is that we used to get into trouble at school and home. The other thing you used to find, is that you could tell which kids went to Catholic schools as they nearly always called the letter "haitch" not "aitch" especially noticeable in the 60s.
There really isn't a large degree of regional difference in Aussie English. You would have to know what to listen for, to pick which coast you're from. Most differences come down to different words of the same object. My cousins' (live in QLD) accent isn't very different to mine (NSW), not much different to friends in WA.
I've lived, and have rellies in several states here. In my experience, dropping the "h" is not usual in Australian speech. Its why its so glaring or harsh on our ears when watching/listening to US programmes
I have never heard an Australian drop the H in historical though I used to now one old woman who would drop it in herb.
I say 'haitch' instead of 'aitch'. I also say 'hopen' instead of 'open' but I always put that down to the speech defect I had as a child. Certainly most people I know don't do it.
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