Brought to You by the Letter H

As I continue my quest through the alphabet, I come to the letter H. H is fairly simple in English. Most words that begin with this letter have the breathy “hah” opening: him, her, horse, hot, etc.

Here’s a song that got stuck in my head with this letter: “Hold Your Head Up” by Argent.

However, there are a few H words that don’t have that breathy start. The two that I can think of are honor (and its family: honorable, honored, honorific, etc) and hour. These words have a silent H, making the first linguistic sound with the O - honor being “ah-nor” and hour being “ow-er”.

Of course, I refer to Mulan’s song “Honor to Us All” to show how the word honor works.

Mind you that dialects can change the rules of linguistics. If you were raised to have silent H’s, it might sound something like this, from “My Fair Lady” - "Just You Wait Henry Higgins":

Also, linguistic rules regarding sounds are not universal across all languages. In Spanish, eggs are huevos (pronounced “way-vohz”), and oven is horno (pronounced “or-no”). For English, however, the two sounds for H starting a word are the breathy “hah” and the silent H.

On to one more thing, I have an issue with a song entitled “Henry the 8th” by Herman’s Hermits.

Firstly, I can understand why a sexually active woman would want the same named guy - she could call out a previous lover’s name without viewed as cheating because it would be the same name.

Secondly, how come she’s had seven husbands? Is she a black widow, upgrading every so often to a younger model? Or has she been a victim of multiple instances of bad karma, killing her husband? Either way, would it really be wise to marry someone that has had that many passed-away spouses? Would you be killed in the next year, whether by accident or by a plan? Either way, I think that this would be a no-sale point for me just in case something sinister is in the works. I wouldn't want to be a part of the "upgrade to a better model" plan. Spouses aren't meant to be like that.

Anyways, on to the letter I, for which I will be posting another blog post soon. Keep tuned!


~Gracie Mae DeLunac
Email graciemaedelunac@yahoo.com
Twitter @Gracie_DeLunac