If you want to see a lot of people go nuts, try moving the silent h in the word Gandhi when you post in your blog. I’ve done it twice now by spelling Gandhi as Ghandi.
So while I was literally trying to end all war and terrorism on Earth, dozens of readers went nuts because I put a silent h in the wrong place. I deleted most of those comments but you know who you are.
Apparently many of you are not aware of the rule of the silent h. A silent h can be put anywhere you want, precisely because it is silent. So for example, it is equally proper to spell it Gandih, Gahndi, hGandi and even Gandhhhhhhhi.
The silent h is very flexible. When I’m talking, I’ll toss in a silent h every third syllable, and no one seems to mind. I’m not trying to show off by doing it. I just like the way it doesn’t sound.
Little known fact: The original name for the stealth bomber was Hhhhhhh, where every h but the fourth one is silent.
Perhaps you haven’t heard the story of how h came to be silent. In Viking days, not only was the h totally noisy, but the Norsemen used them in practically every word. This caused a lot of confusion. The most common phrase in Viking became “Whhaht? I cahn’t hunhderstand! Get the h out!”
But it all came to a head one day when Eric the Artistic carved a wooden chair out of a tree stump and was showing it off to friends. That’s when Allen the Insensitive said, “Nice Chairh, hEric. I thinkh I’ll shit on it.”
Well, the next thing you know, swords are drawn and limbs are flying. And that was the day that the Vikings decided to stop talking in English and go discover the United States, which they called America.