That atrocious American gimmick of pronouncing "herbs" as "erbs".
Eddie Izzard is quite correct: there's a fucking H in it.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Sat 10 Apr 2010, 21:50, 6 replies)

orEGano,
bayzil.

'oddaddah
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Sat 10 Apr 2010, 21:52, closed)

"Herbs"
Y'all do realize, right, that the only "Murkins" who say "HHerbs" are snotty, inbred ("blueblood") WASPs who've never had to work a day in their fucking lives, yes? "Old Money," or New Money like Martha Stewart, who purposefully OVER-PRONOUNCES EVERY FUCKING BREATH like she's the fucking Oracle at Delphi and her every word is THAT fucking "important."

So we get lazy with a consonant or vowel here or there, it's not entirely laziness, sometimes it's expediency, as well. So nyeh.
(AnntichristSCoulter, Sat 10 Apr 2010, 22:11, closed)

It's terrible when people pronounce the letters that are in words.
Just using vowels is the way forward.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Sat 10 Apr 2010, 22:19, closed)

aigh'

( flake has nothing against your right leg, Sat 10 Apr 2010, 22:20, closed)

I read a long discussion of this a while ago
herb is from Old French, yeah. So the argument went something like:
It's from old French and H is not pronounced in French, so should be /erb/
countered with:
Yes, but in Old French, 'h' was still pronounced, so /herb/ is correct.

However, it seems that the /herb/ pronunciation is relatively recent (19th C) in British Englishes. So it appears to fall into the same basket as Fall/Autumn ie something that the Americans have kept that the English have changed.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Sun 11 Apr 2010, 4:43, closed)

Oh.
That's a Brit/Yank thing? I always wondered why some people were saying 'erbs and others were saying hhhherbs.
(TheWonderfulWombat It came to me in a dream., Mon 12 Apr 2010, 2:49, closed)