Why do Americans say 'erbs' instead of 'herbs'?

Well I'm going to share the curiosity with you. I've lived in the US for about 11 years. English is my second language Polish being my first. I'm an excellent speaker, I have no accent and I'm in advanced classes.

This question has startled me quite a bit since last week I had the same discussion with my mates. I said herb, just as I have always said and they corrected me and pronounced it erb. I was puzzled since I've never not said the "h" probably due to me learning the language in a specific way.

Same thing with the word buffet, yes a bit random but it's come to my attention that I have been "saying it incorrectly" instead of pronouncing the "u" sound it has the "a" sound pronounced.

I think this is because Americans were just taught to say it this way, nothing in particular just the idea that "it has always been said this way"

Not only herbs. The letter "h" also becomes silent in the following:

1. honest

2. honor

i am not a native speaker and i cannot really explain why.

We just treat it as a silent "h," for some reason.

I always wonder why other countries watch American tv, we don't have any Australian tv, excepting you-know-who.

(Shrug) I was always taught that the h in herbs was silent. We're not like cockneys, always dropping the h everywhere.

I agree with eveyone else, we just do. but fyi, we do have other words with a silent h (honor, honesty, hour, etc.)

its because 'Herb' is a latin based word.

latin (and alot of latin based languages such as french and spanish) drops the H off of a few words.

That's just the way its properly pronounced.