Published September 23, 2010

The pronunciation of Amherst is an emotional issue. As far as I know, the Amherst in Massachusetts (there are 14 in the United States) is the only one pronounced with a silent H.

AM-urst.

There’s even a T-shirt that proclaims: “Amherst, where only the ‘h’ is silent.” Yes, the people here are opinionated.

These T-shirts are for sale at Amherst250.org.

Still, I hear many students here at UMass pronounce the H — probably because they’re not from here. A cranky minority of residents actually dispute the pronunciation. One person told me it sounds elitist (maybe because the British tend to drop the H?) and another snapped that the town should drop the H if it shouldn’t be pronounced.

I even noticed some folks in our traveling crew pronounce the H in conversation — but not near microphones or around other people. Odd.

Back in May, Radio Boston host Meghna Chakrabarti — who suffers from her own silent H — made the fatal faux pas of mispronouncing Amherst a half-dozen times on the air. After the complaints rolled in, Meghna offered a linguistic olive branch to Amherstonians:

And how did I mispronounce the town’s name? In that dunderheaded inside-Route 128 way, of course. I said, am-HEARST, and not AM-erst, as Amherst should be properly pronounced.

I even called the Amherst College campus and recorded the phone greeting. Sounds like AM-urst to me, but you should listen for yourself:

For the record, official WBUR style is to drop the H.