Friday, October 19, 2007

What has the letter H ever done to you?

I have noticed a trend among broadcast journalists. One that annoys me. It seems that they are systematically attempting to rid us of the "H" sound in our alphabet. When did "human beings" become "youman beings?" What is so hard about pronouncing the "heh" sound before hence, half or humour?

In this post I was going to focus on one thing in particular. This morning on NPR they had a piece on the Neanderthals and how scientists have discovered they had a gene that is key in advanced speech. But the reporters kept referring to them as Neandertals. That got me going. So, I ran in here and jumped on the computer to do some research before posting.

Lo and behold ... even when spelled with the "th," the German pronunciation is with a "tal" sound.

Learn something new every day.

This still doesn't diminsh the fact that we must fight for the right of the aitch!

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