# Stop enunciating the fucking "h".... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 15, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114 "2015-05-15T16:04:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/41 "2015-05-16T06:24:49Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > It’s hardly pretentious. It’s just a different accent. Different English dialects pronounce different phonemes differently. Sometimes the word simply sounds more appropriate to its meaning if you pronounce the “h”. /hwisk/ does sound more like the action of something being whisked away, than /wisk/ does. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/42 "2015-05-16T06:37:29Z")
Didn’t Mrs. Slocombe pronoun all the "h"s when she was trying to speak “Posh”? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/43 "2015-05-16T06:55:12Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > It would always irritate my mom when Worf would pronounce weapons as wHeapons - “There’s not even an h in it!” on Star Trek: TNG. > > You’d think that could be his way of adding a Klingon accent, but Klingon, as far we know, uses plain [w] Maybe Klingon doesn’t have any kind of /w/ sound, so Worf had to learn to approximate it, say by enunciating a short but clear /hu/ sound. Real-world foreign language teachers often have to use essentially similar strategies with beginning students. For any non-native speakers of English whose first languages don’t have /w/, did your English teachers do anything like this when they taught you how to pronounce it? ---
**Author:** ![Precambrianmollusc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/precambrianmollusc/32/63_2.png) [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/44 "2015-05-16T07:09:28Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#): > > This is normal in a lot of Irish accents. It’s no more pretentious than you having the nerve to have whatever accent you grew up with. > > Irish accents aren’t from Britain. Well the British Isles then. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/45 "2015-05-16T07:11:37Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Or the proper spelling of certain contractions. > > 😃 Yeah: lately I’ve been seeing “does’nt,” and “would’nt.” Also, if I see “woah” for “whoa” one more time, I may plotz. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/46 "2015-05-16T09:50:20Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > If you’re not pronouncing them stop putting the letters in the stupid words. Your writing is supposed to at least marginal phonetic, not ideogramic. wat, wen, wy If you feel that way, why spell “writing” as you do? ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/47 "2015-05-16T14:16:37Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Yeah: lately I’ve been seeing “does’nt,” and “would’nt.”. Yeah. Slightly differently, I could understand if people used “does’n’t” or “would’n’t”, since you are contracting one word while cramming it onto a separate word. I mean, if you didn’t use contractions, they wouldn’t be “doesnot” and “wouldnot”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/48 "2015-05-16T18:19:40Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Maybe Klingon doesn’t have any kind of /w/ sound, so Worf had to learn to approximate it, say by enunciating a short but clear /hu/ sound. Real-world foreign language teachers often have to use essentially similar strategies with beginning students. > > For any non-native speakers of English whose first languages don’t have /w/, did your English teachers do anything like this when they taught you how to pronounce it? Ms. Johnny is under the table did that. I keep her in the same mental bin as the kindergarten teacher who taught my niece to pronounce diamond with an extra a; once he recovered from his initial shock at how bad our English was after keeping Johnny under the table for two whole years, Brother Mateo spent several months correcting our pronounciations. The kicker: Spanish does have /w/. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/49 "2015-05-17T01:14:30Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Maybe Klingon doesn’t have any kind of /w/ sound, so Worf had to learn to approximate it, say by enunciating a short but clear /hu/ sound. Real-world foreign language teachers often have to use essentially similar strategies with beginning students. > > For any non-native speakers of English whose first languages don’t have /w/, did your English teachers do anything like this when they taught you how to pronounce it? That’s what I saying turns out not to be the case. I thought of the same thing you did, but I [looked it up on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language#Consonants), and Klingon does have a /w/ sound, and it is just /w/ and not /ʍ/. The article does indicate dialectical variations–however, one with [ʍ] for /w/ has not been documented. The one thing I do notice is that his parents speak with a different accent than he does. Even second generations immigrants tend to keep some of their parents’ accent. So I suspect that he had to intentionally learn the accent he uses, which does sound a bit overly proper. So maybe he learned to hypercorrect. Or, maybe in the future, they are no longer distinct phonemes, and he just thinks [ʍ] sounds better. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/50 "2015-05-18T00:38:11Z")
Friend of mine is an English speech and language therapist who has been resident in Ireland for many years. He reckons that Irish people started enunciating hs partly due to a negative reaction to hs being dropped in some accents, especially working class ones. “tree trees” “I tink” etc. It stands to reason that Irish English speakers resident in Britain, who may have encountered mockery or other negative reactions to their accents might overcompensate a bit. ---
**Author:** ![kferr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/71e660/32.png) [@kferr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kferr)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/51 "2015-05-18T12:41:48Z")
Dubliners make up for the dropped ‘h’ by putting it where it doesn’t belong: “I tink tree weeks in thigh-land would be grand” for “I think three weeks in Thailand would be grand”. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/52 "2015-05-18T13:00:27Z")
> [@kferr](#): > > Dubliners make up for the dropped ‘h’ by putting it where it doesn’t belong: > “I tink tree weeks in thigh-land would be grand” for “I think three weeks in Thailand would be grand”. Sounds like true Bostonians’ relationship with the letter “R” “He pahked the cah in the Yahd. I sawr him. Then he got a slice of pizzar.” ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/53 "2015-05-18T20:10:54Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > “I’m a ga-nu. I’m a ga-nu. The ga-nicest picece of ga-nature in the zoo. > I’m a ga-nu. Spelled gee-en-you. You really ought to ka-now wa-who’s wa-who.” > > Flanders and Swann “No ga-news is good ga-news with Gary Ga-nu” The Great Space Coaster ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/54 "2015-05-18T20:35:27Z")
> [@kferr](#): > > Dubliners make up for the dropped ‘h’ by putting it where it doesn’t belong: > “I tink tree weeks in thigh-land would be grand” for “I think three weeks in Thailand would be grand”. So Thai isn’t pronounced like thigh? News to me. Most Dubliners do pronounce the hs in think and three, it is just softer than in some other accents. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/55 "2015-05-18T20:36:19Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Friend of mine is an English speech and language therapist who has been resident in Ireland for many years. He reckons that Irish people started enunciating hs partly due to a negative reaction to hs being dropped in some accents, especially working class ones. “tree trees” “I tink” etc. It stands to reason that Irish English speakers resident in Britain, who may have encountered mockery or other negative reactions to their accents might overcompensate a bit. Although, unlike many forbears ( who wore their catholicism lightly ), I was not catholic, I went to an RC secondary school — having an Irish name helped. I never _once_, there or anywhere else, heard Irishness mocked. Excepting that when having to sing **Lord of the Dance** we substituted our headmaster’s Irish name for the Devil. Dunno if that counts. Also all the Irish catholic kids pretty much hated the Church and religion, whereas the rest of us were apathetic. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/56 "2015-05-18T21:01:16Z")
Irish jokes were a staple of British comedy well into the 1970s anyway but whatever about Irishness being mocked, Irish accents are and were. I’ve witnessed it a couple of times myself. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/57 "2015-05-18T22:10:42Z")
Kerry jokes were a staple of Irish comedy well into the 1970s. They seemed to roll with it. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/58 "2015-05-18T22:14:37Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Kerry jokes were a staple of Irish comedy well into the 1970s. They seemed to roll with it. Which has no relevance to the point I was making about enunciation of h or lack thereof in Irish accents, does it? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/59 "2015-05-18T22:28:00Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Which has no relevance to the point I was making about enunciation of h or lack thereof in Irish accents, does it? I think you got your As and Es mixed up. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114/60 "2015-05-19T00:19:12Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > So Thai isn’t pronounced like thigh? News to me. IME Thai is pronounced tie or tye…which is certainly different from thigh. Though I could be wrong. I live in south were they pronounce shit all sorts of weird ways… Thighland reminds me of some cheesy sex park that features big boned women…that or place where I get chicken parts in bulk for discount prices. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-enunciating-the-fucking-h/720114.md?page=4)