In Languages: Meryn Stol voted up this answer. Charles Mattrick Why is h silent in some English words? There are two main reasons that an h is not pronounced in an English word. Derivative. This happens when a word derives from a language in which h is silenced. e.g. include “honor” from French “honneur” /ɔnœʁ/, “messiah” from Hebrew “משיח” /maˈʃiax/. Note: there are a lot of exceptions to this rule because as time changes, people forgot the original pronunciation of the word. Words like “horrible” and “hospital” are pronounced with the h sound.Elision. This happens when sounds run together so close that the h sound is omitted to facilitate the pronunciation. e.g. “shepherd” and “exhaust”. Source: Oxford Dictionaries: Why do such words as hour and honest have a silent h? But why do British people pronounce them but Americans don't? It is because of the linguistic conservatism in American English. Until the 16th century, the word “herb” was still spelled as “erb” as in French (See this... - Meryn Stol