l'haricot or le haricot?

[Peter Pedant]

The tee-vee ad has the waitress come in and say,

"saucisses et haricots...." - Just before Joanna Lumley says oh dont be so lah-did-ah.

But she doesnt say ..... ay tarricoh - with an elision as we used to call this. is it because haricot has an aspirin 'h' (as we used to say at school) or is her language coach at fault?

[Bobadob]

Her language coach is at fault, and has been for a long time, witness her dishwasher adverts.

[ChocClare]

Mais oui mais oui, eet ees LE haricot, like LE Havre, LA haie, LES Halles etc etc.  My husband is French and never misses an opportunity to deride the English inability to tell the difference between mute and aspirate Hs in French (or just to deride the English generally).  But, as he would say - er accent ees steel rubbeesh even eef she ees right to miss out the "T". 

(Actually, rather annoyingly, he speaks perfect English with no accent and everyone assumes he IS English.  But her accent is still rubbish.)

[littleoldme]

Whether or not 'haricot' has an aspirant 'h' doesn't actually matter here. The 't' at the end of 'et' is never pronounced, unlike the 't' at the end of 'est' (meaning 'is'), which is pronounced before a vowel or non-aspirant 'h' .

[Peter Pedant]

Thanks everyone. I passed French O level just on forty years ago, and clearly need to brush up ma Fransh a leedol bit....[ ow you say, un p'tit peu?]

 

PP

[Artful]

Beautiful answer littleoldme, if I could rate your answer I'd give you a rollicking *** and even another ***.

[littleoldme]

Six étoiles? Merci beaucoup, Artful, vous êtes trop gentille! Je suis désol&eacute que mon français n'est pas très bon, mais j'espère que je me suis souvenu un peu depuis mes années à l'&eacutecole.

...et si le "HTML" fait face à tous les accents aigus, graves et circonflexes, et la cédille, je serai impressionné!

[littleoldme]

Well that didn't work! OK then, I'm afraid you'll have to imagine the accents:

Six etoiles? Merci beaucoup, Artful, vous etes trop gentille! Je suis desole que mon francais n'est pas tres bon, mais j'espere que je me suis souvenu un peu depuis mes annees a l'ecole.

I won't bother with the last bit, because I think I know the answer :-)

[Artful]

Accents, they're easy: ������� You just need the right equipment, sweetheart!!!!

[xmanfe1999]

Hi everyone! I hope I 'll make everyone come to an agreement: haricot has an aspirant h and one should never make a liaison before, for instance "J'ai mang� de(s) haricots" or "Infirmi�re, veuillez me passer le haricot"... But (because there is a but...) in casual French, "le haricot" may be transformed into "l'haricot" as in "Tu commence � me courir sur l'haricot" , equivalent of "Tu me casses les pieds" or more simply "Tu m'�nerves" - you're driving me crazy; what "l'haricot" is supposed to be in this occurence is not very clear and one may interpret it as they like. Yet, noone would make an abusive liaison when they want to express their conviction that things have come to a (bitter) end : "C'est la fin de(s) haricots" and not "dezaricots"... meaning "les carottes sont cuites" another favoutite French vegetable metaphor.Anyway even the French are not always very accurate about h words and you may hear les "zandicap�s" (particularly on TV), un "n�risson" etc...

[Peter Pedant]

God - or should that be mon Dieu! I should have realised

french grammar - a pedants' paradise!

 

PP

[Narolines]

I'd love to know what all these "aspirant" h's are aspiring to........perhaps to becoming aspirate (or aspirated  - or even retiring and becoming ex-aspirated.....)