Reply to: The English Language.

[TheFaQQer]

I liked the one I looked at earlier.

For us it is "a herb" but an American is more likely to drop the "h" therefore making it "an (h)erb".

Unless it's a person - Herb is still pronounced Herb, e.g.

Herb bought some erbs.

[Troll]

It's brill innit

[OrangeHopper]

I liked the one I looked at earlier.

For us it is "a herb" but an American is more likely to drop the "h" therefore making it "an (h)erb".

[Old Greg]

Just so I can get banned from this forum as well for providing inaccurate information.

"An hole" is wrong.

The use if "An" or "A" simply depends on whether it sounds right or not.

But, as you say, if you drop the "h" it then needs an "An". Very southern.

You'd say an honourable.... cos the h is silent. Some h's like in historic probably used to be silent in English but now aren't which is why you hear an historic... sometimes. Wouldn't say it myself but I might write it in a formal document.

[OrangeHopper]

Just so I can get banned from this forum as well for providing inaccurate information.

"An hole" is wrong.

The use if "An" or "A" simply depends on whether it sounds right or not.

But, as you say, if you drop the "h" it then needs an "An". Very southern.

[Swiss Tony]

The English Language

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

[andy]

Like an hole like

[Clippy]

you could just say 'A hole'

In IT

Describes you perfectly.

[Ardesco]

Like what?

Don't know, like....

[SallyAnne]

Or

A norifice.

Like.

Like what?

[SallyAnne]

Easy. Just replace with:

An orifice.

There now, feel better?

A great solution - many thanks!

[KathyWoolfe]

I personally dont agree with n's before H's.

E.g. An hole.

It just doesn't seem right.

Can we campaign to get this removed? It feels like a southern thing.

I agree, can't we form an organisation similar to the "Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe".

Also, campaign to restore the proper use of words - for example, "I received your invite" will be restored to "I received your invitation" and the abolition of "isations" like "hospitalisation".

Sorry - Rant over!

[Ardesco]

I personally dont agree with n's before H's.

E.g. An hole.

It just doesn't seem right.

Can we campaign to get this removed? It feels like a southern thing.

My god an hole ??? let me get my machete out!!!!!

[TheRightStuff]

Easy. Just replace with:

An orifice.

There now, feel better?

we must be bored. Thread started at 15:40 and within 1 min we've both posted replys. REFRESH, REFRESH, REFRESH.

[TheRightStuff]

you could just say 'A hole'

In IT