How do you pronounce the letter H?

[inlawsimnotsure]

How do you pronounce the letter H? Like ‘ach’ or ‘hhach’?

I work in HR and my name begins with H so I have confidently been saying ‘ach’ my whole life, but all of my colleagues say ‘hhach’ so I am starting to doubt myself.

We are all largely from the same region.

It’s driving me a bit crazy!

I say aitch.

Haich isn’t wrong, it’s an accent thing. I know a bloke who’s got an East London accent who says haich.

It is aitch. On a similar theme I amazed at the number of well spoken people who say Porsche instead of Porscha - listen to Murray Walker or the late, great James Hunt.

Haitch I'm afraid! Although only if it's the first letter I'm saying, e.g. if I was spelling HELEN, I'd say Haitch, ee ell ee enn but if I was saying NHS I'd say enn aitch ess......

Not this AGAIN
It's AITCH unless you're Irish in which case you can get away with HAITCH - anyone else needs to say it properly! End of.

If you're going to add an 'h' to the word aitch, you also need to an 'h' to the word happy, so that's hhappy.

Aitch

it’s an accent thing. I know a bloke who’s got an East London accent who says haich.

I know a woman from East London who says Mataland instead of Matalan-it doesn’t mean it’s right!

Maybe being half Irish is my excuse then!

I mean, by all means say haitch if that's your accent but don't try to justify it by making up utter codswallop.

Haich is common amongst Northern Ireland Catholic's. The rest of the world say aitch.

But don't go telling the Northern Irish catholic's they are wrong, because they aren't! If you see what I mean.

YABU

I can't figure out which one I use and am now having an (h)aitch crisis when I should be cooking dinner.

I amazed at the number of well spoken people who say Porsche instead of Porscha

Surely that’s not really equivalent to the h thing, though. I mean, one is a basic building block of English and the other is a brand of luxury car.

Fwiw though, I always feel self-conscious saying Porsche out loud because the little “uh” bit at the end feels ever so slightly like twattishly performative correctness.

Do people really get heated about pronunciation? I knew spelling was enough for people to stick needles in their eyes/think less of someone, insert whatever dramatic sentence. But there is a life outside of middle class Britain with a range of accents...

But I am in the wrong camp, soooooo

Correctly. Aitch. Look in the dictionary if anyone argues.

Porsche is acceptable usage unlike Porscha which sounds as if you are practising your Italian. Ugh

I think there was a study conducted several years ago which suggested that people pronounced 'aitch' as 'haitch' because they overcompensated due to a fear of dropping their aitches.

I apologise if this is repeating what has been posted before (I have not read the full thread).

Aitch. The only way.

I've always said haitch. Had no idea until right now that everyone else was saying aitch

Porsche is not English though. It comes under the same category as Paella, Piranha and Van Gogh. Most people can't say any of those words correctly unless they speak the languages they come from, they just say them as they read them.

Foreign word pronunciation usually has nothing to do with social class or accent. H does.

Exactly, @NoTheresa. Like people who go all OTT with “chorizo”. Cringe

Porsche is not English; it is Italian. Yep, alluded to that above.

Aitch is correct. 'Haitch' is fearfully common

Or cwassaunt

Aitch.

Its aitch innit.