To ask you how you say the letter 'H'???

[NowSissyThatWalk]

Okay.
So this may have been done to death, but I am a woman close to the edge.
I pronounce the letter H as 'Aitch', not
pronouncing any 'H' sound at the start.
I have always been told this is the 'right' way to pronounce it, and so it's stuck.
But I seem to never hear anyone ever saying it like this and instead pronounce the 'H', as 'Haitch'.
I can't take much more of it. My DP says 'Haitch' and corrects me every time I don't.
I should LTB shouldn't I????

OvO Will you join my campaign to have anyone who refers to Laura Norder on radio or television boiled in oil?

Absolutely, Andrew.

That made me laugh as it took a second for me to get it!

I am Irish and say Haitch.

It depends on how I am saying it. If I'm spelling something out like Harry, spelt H A R R Y then I say Haitch. If its as in NHS then I say Aitch. Also if it is at the start of a sentence then I say Haitch and if it is mid sentence then I say Aitch. So acronyms like NHS are Aitch and ones like HA are Haitch. Never really thought about it until now.

It's definitely aitch.

I work in a call centre though and I've actually had customers pull me up on it, when they are in the wrong. One of them actually said to me 'er, I think you mean haitch, actually"

'Haitch' is the one thing that really sets me on edge. I know it's part of some dialects but it sounds unpleasant to my ear. I hear it all the time because our organisation is abbreviated to 3 letters, the first being H.

To the posters who think it doesn't matter, do you feel the same way about "zee"?

runs and hides

Aitch. Ds got corrected every time he said "Haitch" and now (at 15) knows better just as he wasn't allowed to rhyme "J" with "Tie"

Andylion
*throws scones.

I pronounce it properly. Aitch. Anything else is not a regional variation, it's a mistake.

Makes me absolutely livid when I hear Haitch. I always assume people who say it are not all that bright (clearly that's not true but that's how it makes them sound imo)

Why would you be livid? Are you highly strung as a rule?

I say "aitch", DD says "haitch" and it drives me fucking crazy. I think she got it from DC at school.

I agree it is supposed to be 'aitch' but my last job involved a lot of talking with various people over the phone, including spelling out postcodes and reference numbers, etc, and I got so worn down with me saying 'aitch,' and them going 'a?' I eventually lost the will to live and used 'huh,' even though I then annoyed myself every time.

Same with 'oblique,' and 'hyphen,' most people just had no idea, so I had to switch to 'slash' and 'dash.' Annoying but the whole point of spelling the addresses out over the phone was to make sure they got it exactly right, so no point in me faffing about doing it 'correctly' only to create more confusion.

The recorded message at my GP surgery tells us that in an emergency we should call 'en haitch ess'. It drives me nuts!

Aitch

Aitch
Ay T Shhh

H is 50% of my 4 initials, I have a very valid opinion on this!

People are weird. First I find out that my fanny is vulgar and now if I use the pronunciation that I was raised to use (because it is the convention in the country my mother is from) people think I'm stupid or are driven to murderous thoughts.

Aitch.

What about "often"? I was taught to say "off-en" in school, with a particular point being made that this was more proper. But i have no idea if this is the case.

That's another good one rings
I say off-en.

Another one who can tell someone's religious background by their pronunciation of the letters H and A.

I pronounce the t in often.

But soffen for soften.

Aitch here - I'm from the north east and have never heard anyone local use haitch. Mind, I have a small child so more often it's huh (which is always a bit embarrassing when you inadvertently use it at work). I pronounce the t in often too.

It's a shibboleth between Catholics and Protestants in many areas.

Silvermantela I also get funny looks if I say hyphen when spelling my email address. They ask, "do you mean dash?" No I mean fucking hyphen you awful person.

Haitch.