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Pedants' corner

The letter H - it's 'aitch' not 'haitch' - Grrr

43 replies

Lakelover · 08/08/2008 12:50

DP insists on pronoucing it 'haitch' - drives this pedant potty.

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Lakelover · 08/08/2008 12:52

Oh FFS - now I can't spell pronouncing...

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prettybird · 08/08/2008 12:52

The toher one I hate is J pronounce J-eye and not "Jay".

Ds gets that corrected when he does that. He hears "J-eye" at school.

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edam · 08/08/2008 12:52

Oh, I agree, vehemently. I always want to ask people 'do you pronounce the letter S as 'sess'? Or L as 'lell'?

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expatinscotland · 08/08/2008 12:54

I had never heard it pronounced 'haitch' until I came here.

Or J said as anything other than 'jay'.

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SheikYerbouti · 08/08/2008 12:54

My 92 year old Great Aunt (who is foul-mouthed) says it too, but adds "a" in front of it "a-haitch)

She can often be heard saying "Everyone calls me Floss, but me real name's A-Hemily"

Bless her cottons.

She will normally complete her conversation by calling her neighbour a cunt or something and then taking a big drag from her Menthol Superking.

Nice.

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SheikYerbouti · 08/08/2008 12:55

I have never heard J-eye

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Lakelover · 08/08/2008 12:56

Am sure he does it just to irritate me! Think he's going to try and teach ds to say it too just to make things worse!

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Threadwworm · 08/08/2008 12:57

It's just a dialect difference, isn't it? Neither is more correct than the other. After all, we have 'bee' for 'B', etc, so the 'sess' analogy doen't really work.

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Lakelover · 08/08/2008 12:58

I've never heard J-eye either (thank god).

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hanaflower · 08/08/2008 12:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Lakelover · 08/08/2008 13:00

Probably, threadworm, but it irritates me none the less !!!

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frankiesbestfriend · 08/08/2008 13:00

My elderly northern grandparents have trouble with this one.

When saying any word that begins with H they pronounce it without the h sound then add afterwards, 'with a haitch'.

So, for example, "Her name is 'elen with a haitch".

Quite sweet, though, it doesn't irritate me.

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frankiesbestfriend · 08/08/2008 13:02

Oh, and imo it is not just dialect difference, 'haitch' is actually incorrect.

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PuppyMonkey · 08/08/2008 13:02

I say haitch all the time I am very common and from nottingham.

Never j-eye though, wtf?

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FranSanDisco · 08/08/2008 13:05

Dh's glaswegie rellies say J-eye and as a sheep he then puts on his accent and says it like that to please them. He does say aitch though. My mum is from Dublin and says haitch and ore for R. Dd says aitch but ds says haitch. This is down to their respective teachers and regional accents. I've one f%&£ed up family .

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prettybird · 08/08/2008 14:13

Jeye seems to be a Glasgwo thing. Don't know about the rest of Scoltand.

I'm going to have to have a word with ds (7)though: while it is OK for us to correct him when he says things like "J(eye)" or "I seen (x)", it is not OK for him to crrect his friends! It is not the best "how to make friends and influnce people" strategy

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JT · 08/08/2008 14:16

one of my pet hates this

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAitch

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StellaDallas · 08/08/2008 14:16

I am Irish and haitch is what we say. Not incorrect, just dialect. And while we are on the subject, why do the English pronounce r as ah?

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quickdrawmcgraw · 08/08/2008 14:20

I'm Irish and I say aitch because that's how it spelt.

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Quattrocento · 08/08/2008 14:31

I used to have a boyfriend who did that. He quickly became an ex-boyfriend - it's intolerable

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PuppyMonkey · 08/08/2008 14:32

H is spelled aitch? Isn't it spelled H?

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derelicte · 08/08/2008 14:33

Haitch is incorrect. Look in the dictionary. Aitch is in there as a proper word, 'haitch' isn't. It's not even standardised dialect.

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PuppyMonkey · 08/08/2008 14:38

Yes it is. How strange.

I wonder why El isn't in the dictionary, you know for L. Or En for N. Or dee for D. Why does aithc get a special word???

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derelicte · 08/08/2008 14:41

Um, I think they are...at least some of them, e.g. en and em. They can be handy in scrabble.

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PuppyMonkey · 08/08/2008 14:44

En isn't.
Em is in but only as an abbreviation of Em.

I must get a life

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