not to want my children being taught to say 'haitch'?

[cutegorilla]

It really annoys me. Now my 4yo DS won't believe me when I say it should be 'aitch' because his teacher says 'haitch' and so does everyone else (perhaps not altogether surprising if that's what they're being taught).

Go on, tell me I'm being a snob.

Those who say 'haitch' do you say N haitch S? I don't think I've ever heard it said that way. Just wondered .

DDs went to a Catholic Primary School, now at posh London Day Schools and say haitch to wind up their peers.

Happy - have to say I never really noticed either way I grew up in a 'mixed'(bleurgh hate that term!) family, CoI/RC & from both sides of the border. I rather liked haitch as a kid, bit felt self conscious saying it.

I was just saying that a language study showed that ensuring the difference was (we're talking up to the 70s) considered important & that the schools didn't just teach it by default but apparently (& I'm way too young to know!) made it clear that aitch was NOT acceptable. My grandfather confirmed this, he reckons he was caned for saying AITCH.

'Aitch' is very rarely written (unless it is in a thread like this) but it is often spoken (as in NHS).

I think the language is in a constant state of flux with conventions and pronunciations changing. We say 'an hour' but 'a history lesson', we say 'an honour', but 'a horticultural society'.

The Americans say 'an herb', and it sounds awful to my ears, but it is probably a much older way of prounouncing than 'a herb'.

According to Bill Bryson's book 'Mother Tongue' some areas of England pronounced 'one' as 'own' (when you look at the spelling, that is the way it should be, as in the connected word 'only'), but different areas of England used our current way, and eventually this took precedence.

Can you imagine how brassed off the people who said 'own' would have been at the time.

My name starts with this letter btw, and an old oyfriend used to call me "Aitch" as a nickname. He used to write it sometimes too (this was in the olden days when people used to write letters!). He never put an h in front of it.

BTW do those of you who say the letter wrongly as haitch, actually say "a haitch" or "an haitch"?

My name starts with H too. My friends call me Haitch :)

I say "a haitch". Is that lower class wrong as well?

no no, "a haitch" would be logical, I mean if you insist on calling it haitch when it's spelled aitch , but I just wondered, as it's kind of hard to say a haitch.

No more than a hotel. Or don't posh people say "an hotel"? I saw it in a Rosamunde Pilcher novel.

Why does the letter have a spelling anyway? Em isn't in the dictionary, or en, or pee.

I say haitch but I'm a NI Catholic, we were told protestants english people said aitch.

Now I have just spoken to my husband who drank his way through who has an English degree he has told me that it originally was a "class thing" here that quickly morphed into a "religious thing"

of course em is in the dictionary, and en, and pee, and ex, and zed. Go and have a look! like here

It's not in my Oxford Children's Dictionary

I say haitch too I'm afraid, and scone- gone and vase- has, but I'm a NI Catholic so that's probably why! Couldn't actually bring myself to say aitch, it feels so wrong.

I say Aitch!

YABU. I'm originally from Ireland and we were taught to say haitch. Interestingly, we don't drop haitches at the beginning of our words!
I think haitch is the correct way, as much as you think aitch is right.
Oh and I would definitely say N Haitch S.

'vase' is varze surely?!! :o
DH and I say aitch, DDs say haitch - I always thought it was local.

Another Aussie here who says "aitch". "Haitch" is a Catholic marker in Australia and I am a lapsed Anglican.

well my Irish mother says 'varze' - or 'v-ah-z' - I like your spelling better than mine, I think its more accurate.

Anyone else say "lorry" to rhyme with "slurry"? just me amongst friends,must be the bit of the North West I come from....

and actually she says 'M-ah-ss' and 'p-ah-te' (as in terrine, rather than a party) as well. Also 'ick-ay-a' for IKEA. she is quite odd now I come to think of it.

Sorry to upset your theories about "haitch" and "aitch" being regional variations, but I say "aitch" and my sister says "haitch" - and we were both brought up in the same area until I left when I was 24. However, I do remember an English teacher telling our class that it was "aitch" and she asked us all to look in our dictionaries to check that she was right (she was, of course). My sister went to different schools to me so I guess her teachers were not so conscientious. Incidentally the other thing which my sister says which irritates me like hell is to say "et" instead of "ate" - cue inward shudders from me!

hate it - YANBU

Dh was telling me off for telling our children that it's aitch not haitch (we are Asian immigrants here), because all the English people he knows say haitch and they are obviously right .

Another one I don't understand is drawRing instead of drawing. Even the headmaster says that.

I remember a Radio 4 programme about the religious divide in Northern Ireland and the pronounciation of 'aitch' a few years ago. Very interesting and insightful it was too. I also remember my former maths teacher giving me lines for saying 'haitch' in one of his lessons. Consequently I've pronounced it as 'aitch' ever since

It certainly isn't a question of phonetics otherwise why do we say, 'hours', 'honest', 'heir', 'honour' and so on without pronouncing the 'h'? You could argue that it cuts both ways but I believe that it should be pronounced 'aitch'

NUFC69 'et' is the more 'proper' / posher version of ate, lots of peope would say that's correct.

OP, despite thinking haitch indicates nothing other than a regional accent, I would object to my children being taught to say this. It is not correct and they certainly shouldn't be told it is 'right' in some way. The letter is aitch and that's the standard English pronunciation. If they pick up a local accent from friends though, that's another thing entirely, no-one's teaching them it is 'right', it's just the way people speak.

"I hate the sound of grarss, vars, parss, all those words. But I wouldn't start a thread here saying it was ignorant, or chavvy"

That is dialect not class. I am from South London and say grarse, barth etc because of where I grew up, not because of my background.