Pedants' Paradise

[jean]

Definitely aithch, not haitch.

That is, a class marker.

[Pabmusic]

... because "historic", "historical" are stressed on the second syllable, whereas "history" is stressed on the first.

A history, an historic occasion, an historical romance.

I still use this form ; I understand it is now-a-days considered antiquated. But so am I...

It's even simpler. History and historical were once pronounced istory and istorical (more like their French originals) but now are almost invariably pronounced history and historical (though some of us still drop the aitch on unstressed syllables, because it's easy to do).

Many words have gone through similar processes with aitch - horrible, hospital, host, human, and humour. Americans still pronounce herb as erb (they will talk of an erbal remedy) whereas we've been pronouncing it herb for years (a herbal remedy). But we still say hour, honour and honest the 'French' way.

It's not surprising that there's confusion and scope for 'folk etymology'. The worst has been that social class requires 'an' with words where the aitch is now pronounced. An hotel is just wrong (and awkward to say) unless one pronounces it as Bertie Wooster would have done - an 'otel. But that probably sounds affected today.

I think this confusion is also behind the aitch/haitch pronunciation that Padraig raised. I've seen it argued that H is not a 'real' letter at all because its formation does not involve teeth, tongue or any of the other bits that contribute to pronunciation - it's just a puff of air. It might just as well have been an accent, as it is in classical Greek (denoted there by ' in front of the letter).

[jean]

Whatever it is, the Greek rough breathing isn't what we usually think of as an accent, though.

[Pabmusic]

NWhatever it is, the Greek rough breathing isn't what we usually think of as an accent, though.

No, I quite agree - it's a non-alphabetic mark, I suppose.

[french frank]

Where did the French h come from?

Probably all part of the Renaissance re-spelling to indicate the classical origin (which they all knew about). So Old French in most(?) cases didn't have an initial 'h' because it wasn't pronounced: estoire/istoire > histoire; eure/ore > heure; ome > hom. As spelling became fixed some 'etymological' spellings remained, many didn't. They didn't always get it right.

Sçavoir (false etymology from scire) reverted to savoir (from sapere) and there were other similar examples.

[vinteuil]

... so in English the earlier form "vittles" was 'corrected' to "victuals"

[jean]

...and OE dette was 'corrected' to debt, to associate it more closely with Latin debitum.

.

[Richard Tarleton]

...and speaking of false etymology, Welsh Rarebit is a corruption of Welsh Rabbit

[gurnemanz]

... so in English the earlier form "vittles" was 'corrected' to "victuals"

...a bit like the superfluous "b" in doubt. It arrived from French "douter", where the "b" had already been lost along the way from Latin "dubitare". Some zealous scribes (mediaeval pedants who knew Latin) then over-corrected by erroneously re-inserting it. No one had ever pronounced the b.

The loss of the "b" in the first place is yet another example of erosion. The French, Spanish and Italians, completely lost the aspirated "h" in transition from Latin. "Hoc die" (on this day) is an interesting case which I've just been reading about. It was first eroded in Latin to "hodie" and eroded still further in Spanish to "hoy" and French to "hui". A strange phenomenon then took place in France, whereby speakers started to dislike the ground-down, meagre form "hui" and piled more syllables back on, which led to the current form "aujourd'hui" (literally - on the day of this day). (cf tautologous phrases like "at his moment in time" used in preference to the meagre "now"). We seem to like both to erode and admit unnecessary accretions to achieve some kind of emphasis. Apparently, some French people have even taken to saying "au jour aujourd'hui" - no doubt (dout?) strongly disapproved of by the Académie.

[mercia]

we need the b in indubitably though. [sorry I'm rather out of my depth in this fascinating thread]

[french frank]

we need the b in indubitably though. [sorry I'm rather out of my depth in this fascinating thread]

Yes, because that happened at a later date when a new word was being invented, roughly based on the Latin - a so-called 'learned borrowing' - rather than fiddling about with the spelling of an already existing word which (as gurnemanz describes) had been subject to natural phonological change.

In some cases an existing word was considered to have altered its meaning as well as its form so that to get back to the original meaning there was a 'learned borrowing' which resulted in a doublet - two words derived from the identical Latin original. So, abbreviare >abréger > Eng. abridge) was joined by abbreviare > abbreviate. The borrowings happened in English and French (so, captivus >chétif/captif, I think).

[vinteuil]

... nice when words move from one language to another, change meaning, and are re-introduced into the original language - such as the French verb "interviewer"

[Padraig]

[QUOTE=Old Grumpy;451430]

... I seem to recall hearing that in Catholic schools in Ireland pupils were taught to say 'haitch', and that in Protestant schools they were taught to say 'aitch' - is there any truth in this? Does this divergence exist elsewhere in the British Isles?

Certainly in southern England / RP, the aitch / haitch distinction is very much a class marker, the "haitch" causing horripilation among the more sensitive....[/QUOTE

Definitely aithch, not haitch. The Irish question is interesting - perhaps Padgraig could elucidate.

OG

Sorry that the thread has moved on since. But, to be polite.......
I must look a bit more into this, if I can. Meanwhile, I grew up saying aitch, unthinking. I am Northern and Catholic educated. I think Protestants say haitch, but I have not eavesdropped. My wife is Southern, Convent educated and says haitch. I have listened to myself and I say a historic, a hotel, a horrific, and generally say the h. In words like where, when, white I have to make myself say the h, but I think the local trend is to leave it out of those words - were, wen, wite. My wife has no difficulty including it, and in fact chastises me wen i forget. I'm afraid this is an Irish elucidation.

[JFLL]

A nice citation from OED:

'1939 Boys' Life May 33/4 All the names begin with a haitch. There's 'Orace, 'Erbert, 'Enry, 'Ugh, 'Ubert, 'Arold, 'Arriet, and 'Etty—all hexcept the last one and we 'ad 'er named Halice.'

[jean]

... I grew up saying aitch, unthinking. I am Northern and Catholic educated. I think Protestants say haitch, but I have not eavesdropped. My wife is Southern, Convent educated and says haitch.

Southern Protestants say aitch in my experience. That could be a class thing.

...In words like where, when, white I have to make myself say the h, but I think the local trend is to leave it out of those words - were, wen, wite. My wife has no difficulty including it, and in fact chastises me wen i forget. I'm afraid this is an Irish elucidation.

This is interesting. It is very Irish - maybe only Southern Irish - to aspirate initial wh. Most British English accents don't do it, and I have heard it described by academic linguists as our old favourite, hypercorrection. Which makes me very cross.