Dropping the aitch from "human"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I didn't think so when my first published article was subtitled "An Historical Glossary." John Algeo of _AS_ seemed not to think so either, since he didn't change it.

  Later we were both mildly criticized by a famous dialectologist.

  But despite the "an," I didn't/ don't usually drop the "h."

  Weird, isn't it ?

  JL

Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Re: Dropping the aitch from "human"
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There's also the pseudo-h-dropping in such constructions as "an historian." Aren't those are high-brow affectations?

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:32:10 -0500
>From: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: Dropping the aitch from "human"
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Laurence Horn
>Subject: Re: Dropping the aitch from "human"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 6:38 PM -0600 12/18/06, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote:
>>I think you need to differentiate h-dropping in 'human, humor,
>>humid' etc. from the others. In these cases you have consonant
>>cluster simplification /hj/ > /j/ which continues a long tradition
>>in the history of English. This flavor of h-dropping is associated
>>with NY/NJ but I can't find a citation for that. I checked Wells and
>>found no mention of it. I'm 99% sure that it's not mentioned in
>>Labov's Phonological Atlas.
>>
>Good point. I suspect I've heard a bunch of instances of h-dropping
>in such proper names as "Houston" and "Hugh" without even noticing
>it. (The former only for the city, not the street that marks the
>SoHo boundary--if someone pronounced the street name as "OW-ston",
>now *that* I'd have noticed.)
>
>It seems to me I do in fact dimly recall cases of communication
>breakdown over references to "Hugh" vs. "you". Now of course we know
>that it's the latter, not the former, who has been selected as Time's
>POTY.
>
>LH
>
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