The Letter H

A few will be aware I have been known to speak on various subjects over the years. Fundamentally these all revolve around my favourite subject of etymology. Have always enjoyed bringing this fascinating subject to others. It’s not for me to say whether the audiences have, although many have asked me to return.

Thought it might be worthwhile sharing a snippet or two from these etymological presentations, continuing with The Letter H. The eighth letter of the English alphabet has the distinction of being the first letter to have its own listing in the dictionary, doing so many years before the second. Look up 'H' and discover the recommended pronunciation is 'aitch' although the dictionary concedes the increased use of 'haitch' is an alternative. Hear, too, how the letter came to English, of its changing usage throughout history and just how the letter's upper case rugby posts-like image and corresponding lower case form came about. Yet this is not just a talk about a single letter but a look at the development, changing usage and beginnings of our all-too familiar alphabet.

The letter ‘H’, the eighth letter of the alphabet, is also listed in the OED under the first letter of the alphabet – ie ‘A’. This is because the letter ‘H’ is unique as it is the only letter in the OED to be listed as a word. Why on earth would this be I hear you cry – well no, I don’t but you’re finding out anyway. It is because of the plural, a plural found in the phrase (sadly not used anywhere near enough these days) “to drop one’s aitches”.

Now dropping one’s aitches is the reason why some refer not to AITCH but to HAITCH. Remember Parker the chauffeur in Thunderbirds? He was your archetypal cockney, his speech saw him drop the aitch at the beginning of words such as ‘appy, ‘elp, ‘erring, and ‘enry, but include an erroneous ‘h’ at the beginning of words such as h’easter, h’avenue, h’artist, and h’England. Now somewhere along the way someone thought the letter ‘aitch’ began with an ‘aitch’ when it doesn’t but it does end in an ‘aitch’

Now the OED base their rules very much on usage. Thus the more people get it wrong and say HAITCH the more likely it will be that HAITCH will lose its listing under ‘A’. Indeed the OED already recognise both forms, so the rot has probably already set in so far it is impossible to reverse

Not only do we add an ‘h’ at the beginning when none is present, but we also pronounce the ‘h’ at the beginning of words where the ‘h’ is present but accepted pronunciation is without. Perhaps the best known of these is ‘hotel’ which, being of French derivation, should be said to be ‘otel and thus we should say ‘an hotel’ not ‘a hotel’. There are others: such as ‘hour’, ‘heir’ and ‘honest’ which have also come to English from French.

We also need to look at the origin of the letter for, like all letters and symbols, they were not simply invented but developed. To do so it is probably easier to work back from the present era rather than forward from the beginning of writing. During the last thousand years the letter has become harsher in languages such as Portuguese and Spanish; while Romance languages, such as Romanian, had lost the sound completely until re-borrowed from neighbouring Slavic languages. All these come from Etruscan ‘H’ and this comes, in turn, from archaic Greek alphabets the letter became a long vowel, borrowed directly from the earliest known form as a letter. While the Greek version is eta early forms give this as heta, itself also seen in the Phoenician heth. The Phoenician alphabet had two forms, one clearly very similar to a modern capital ‘H’ and the other related to Old Semitic which appears as the ‘H’ but with a bar at both top and bottom. This in turn clearly represents a part of the Egyptian hieroglyph known as ‘fence’. Both of these are referred to as a ‘voiceless pharyngeal fricative’ and undoubtedly stood for a fence or posts.

If you think you know someone who would like to hear me speak on this subject, drop me a line.

Poisonous Writing

Last time I looked at the rather unsavoury ingredients once used in everyday trades. A visit to the British Library in London gave me the opportunity to see some of the illuminated manuscripts of yesteryear. Despite the age of these documents the colours remain quite wonderfully preserved and got me wondering about the recipes to produce the different colours.

It must be said the recipe very much depended upon what was available at the time and thus changed depending upon where the monks and their quill pens were based. I admit I have chosen the worst possible blend in each case, although even the least harmful could never be described as palatable.

RED
In nature red is a warning colour, used by animals to suggest toxicity. When it comes to red ink the same could be said regarding some of the ingredients. Lac is derived from the excretions of certain insects, gathered from the bark of the tree and treated to produce the red colour. It is the same substance which produces shellac. In Britain we were more likely to have used red lead, not exactly the safest of products, or vermilion, found in nature as cinnabar and known to chemists as mercury sulphide.

YELLOW
Saffron will produce a delightful yellow pigment but, pound for pound, the most expensive foodstuff on the planet would be unlikely to be wasted making yellow. Again a mineral solution proved more cost-effective, with limonite being the optimum choice but could not be guaranteed to produce the same shade of yellow every time. This was not the case with orpiment, which was used until the nineteenth century but did have a downside in being incompatible with other pigment bases and, worse still, being toxic in the extreme – a clue found in the chemical name of arsenic sulphide.

GREEN
At last based on something most of us will have heard of. Verdigris is the coating which forms on the surface of copper over time. It will occur naturally, although boiling copper plates in vinegar accelerates the process. Verdigris is not always the same compound, there are several which are known as such, but all have one thing in common, the element copper making them extremely toxic.

BLUE
Of course the classic is woad, the plant which Britons once used to paint themselves blue. At last a plant which may actually have beneficial properties, one thought to offer some prevention against cancer. On the minus side the root is used in Chinese herbal medicine and long-term use can do damage to the kidneys. Perhaps this explains why blue pens have always been the most popular?

WHITE
Not exactly a common colour in illuminated manuscripts but certainly a necessary one. Chalk was the obvious ingredient but that did only sit in suspension and will only prove a temporary solution. Most often the ominously-sounding white lead was used. Correctly lead carbonate was created by popping lead sheets in vinegar to corrode them, then covering the result in dung to lock in the carbon dioxide and complete the process. Such white lead paint was used on the wooden hulls of Royal Navy vessels to prevent infestations of marine worms. While the use of the colour is not directly toxic, the process required to achieve this is undoubtedly so.

BLACK
Usually carbon as a result of burning, such as lampblack, charcoal, bone, etc would prove difficult to use. Most often the black pigment was created by boiling iron in vinegar, the result then mixed with an extract from oak apples or galls.

GOLD
Here the monks used powdered gold which was mixed with egg .

SILVER
Exactly the same as gold, the precious metal was reduced to a powder and mixed with egg. Sometimes tin replaced silver for the same result.

As I researched and wrote this I was reminded of those irritants at school who would lick the (pointed) end of their pencil before writing. They would not have lasted long as medieval monks.