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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

The alphabet and 'H'.

458 replies

Thatbliddywoman · 01/09/2020 22:50

So we say
Ay.
Bee
Sea
Dee
Ee
Eff
Jee
Aitch. Except we don't. We say 'Haitch'.
Why?
We make the aitch have its own letter as the sound of the word for it
We don't do that with any other letter. Why H?
We don't say 'wubbleyew' do we, It's 'doubleyew'?
I don't understand it.

OP posts:
FlySheMust · 03/09/2020 13:45

*need to look up the word manners.

PolkadotsAndMoonbeams · 03/09/2020 14:04

@ForrestTrump

^"Haitch is incorrect - it’s pronounced Aitch" Read the fucking thread.^

Maybe you should do the same. Especially the bit where it explains that the Normans brought the letter "hache" to our country almost 1000 years ago.

The Normans would have dropped the H sound at the beginning though. Grin
BoingBoingyBoing · 03/09/2020 14:24

@FlySheMust

*need to look up the word manners.
GrinGrinGrinGrinGrin

Oh, I'm sorry, are we all supposed to agree with people on a discussion forum if if they say (gasp) slightly stupid things?

I don't think the internet is really for you if you think that is the case.

Katiepoes · 03/09/2020 14:32

Do people really get 'stressed' by this? I once had an idiotic colleague that 'corrected' my use of haitch in a meeting. As I am a polite Irish person comfortable with my correct use of Hiberno-English I did not smack the rude twat, I simply thanked him for his input and worked as many haitches in as I could, along with a few gottens. He was a red ball of rage by the end of the meeting. Arsehole.

I love these threads, won't be long now before we have the hate filled threads about the HAITCH word that really sets off the English types that are ignorant of anywhere north or west of them - Hallowe'en Grin

(To the poster suggesting our anscestors should have shouted Haitch Haitch Haitch, you have my day better, thank you!)

DidoAtTheLido · 03/09/2020 15:47

*FlySheMust -

Have I said I despise anyone? No. I wonder why you feel you need to lie. I think a word should be pronounced the way it is in the OED. I haven't said I despise those who don't

it's OK, I am quite happy for you to substitute the word 'criticise' for 'despise'.

And since you are calling me a liar, I didn't actually say you had said you despised anyone. As it happens.

How do you pronounce 'nuance' and 'subtext'?

Your aggressive answers drip contempt for the people who disagree with you.

Your style is beginning to make me think you have proved my point.

FlySheMust · 03/09/2020 16:12

@DidoAtTheLido

*FlySheMust -

Have I said I despise anyone? No. I wonder why you feel you need to lie. I think a word should be pronounced the way it is in the OED. I haven't said I despise those who don't

it's OK, I am quite happy for you to substitute the word 'criticise' for 'despise'.

And since you are calling me a liar, I didn't actually say you had said you despised anyone. As it happens.

How do you pronounce 'nuance' and 'subtext'?

Your aggressive answers drip contempt for the people who disagree with you.

Your style is beginning to make me think you have proved my point.

I haven't said anything about how other people pronounce the word. Still you have trouble with the truth. Just how I believe it should be pronounced and I agree with the dictionary.

Not so much aggressive as irritated by people who make things up on the internet. There's a word for them, I must look it up in the dictionary.

FourTeaFallOut · 03/09/2020 16:21

It's amazing the things that people will pick out to feel superior on MN.

iklboo · 03/09/2020 16:51

Look, it could be worse. I worked with a woman who said

Dracklia (Dracula)
Hossickle (hospital)
Chimberley (chimney)
Cackalogue (catalogue)

Aitch / haitch doesn't even come near.

IHateCoronavirus · 03/09/2020 17:01

Grin I’m loving cackalogue! If only I had an abundance of things to sell to witches!

DidoAtTheLido · 03/09/2020 21:03

No one in my workplace can say mural or pastoral.
An i creeps in.

bluecoffeecups · 03/09/2020 21:29

@heartonastring

Is it a regional dialect thing? Some people say aitch, others say Haitch. I think this is why it's important to teach our children phonics.
I think this is why it's important to teach children to say the alphabet out loud.
Etinox · 03/09/2020 21:32

@DidoAtTheLido

No one in my workplace can say mural or pastoral. An i creeps in.
Do you work in an atelier specialising in bucolic wall paintings? Trying to envisage a workplace where this is regular vocabulary!
Etinox · 03/09/2020 21:34

Although where I work everyone says Westminister- next borough along, very churched colleagues. It crops up a lot.

Fink · 03/09/2020 21:35

@DidoAtTheLido an i creeps in where? I can't imagine those words with an i sound in them anywhere! Pastoral has two alternate pronunciations in my workplace depending on who's saying it (plus we work with a lot of people who have EAL or come from other English-speaking countries so they pronounce it in all kinds of ways). It's a pretty commonly used word as we're a church. Neither have an i, they just differ as to whether the o is stressed or unstressed. I don't think I've heard anyone say mural recently.

Etinox · 03/09/2020 21:40

[quote Fink]@DidoAtTheLido an i creeps in where? I can't imagine those words with an i sound in them anywhere! Pastoral has two alternate pronunciations in my workplace depending on who's saying it (plus we work with a lot of people who have EAL or come from other English-speaking countries so they pronounce it in all kinds of ways). It's a pretty commonly used word as we're a church. Neither have an i, they just differ as to whether the o is stressed or unstressed. I don't think I've heard anyone say mural recently.[/quote]
Muriel and pastorial I imagine.
On the much safer ground of non regional mispronunciations I wince at advocado.

DidoAtTheLido · 03/09/2020 22:00

Yes, murial and pastorial.

Pastorial does crop up a lot, as in 'pastorial care'...and we did have cause to repair a murial. It was a difficult time.

Fink · 03/09/2020 22:18

On the much safer ground of non regional mispronunciations I wince at advocado.

I'd just assume they'd eaten a lawyer. Grin

blacksax · 03/09/2020 22:23

It's so culturally ingrained in NI and I find the attitude to haitch in this thread offensive and colonialist.

Culturally ingrained? How could someone from another country possibly know about that though? I certainly didn't until I read this thread. Why on Earth would I have known?

You see, I'm nearly 60 and I was born and live in England. For all that time I have pronounced it 'aitch' and we were all taught at school to pronounce it that way. Therefore, when I hear someone say 'haitch' I know it's wrong.

In England. Where the word is in the dictionary as 'aitch'.

Elsewhere in the world people pronounce English words differently. They are welcome to do so. But when English people are talking on a forum based in England about a word in the English language, then clearly they are entitled to say what they feel is the correct English pronunciation.

Smallsteps88 · 03/09/2020 22:29

How could someone from another country possibly know about that though? I certainly didn't until I read this thread. Why on Earth would I have known?

The same why I and many others who were raised to say “haitch” know that others say “aitch”. How is that we can be aware others say it differently but it’s outrageous to suggest you might have noticed that in your 60 years of life? Do you live in a bubble?

Smallsteps88 · 03/09/2020 22:29

Why= way.

Namechanger87851 · 03/09/2020 22:32

I say haitch (which I know is wrong )
Massively ironic given that in my accent we drop he H sound from most words 🤷🏻‍♀️

Namechanger87851 · 03/09/2020 22:32

*the

Thegingerpig · 03/09/2020 22:45

I was brought up to pronounce it as aitch. Absolutely everyone I knew growing up pronounced it this way. It’s probably in the last 20 years or so that I’ve noticed the haitch pronounciation to be more common. Sounds bloody awful to my ears!

eggandonion · 03/09/2020 22:58

Is mumsnet an English forum for English people? I didn't realise. I assumed it was for anyone.

DollyDoneMore · 03/09/2020 23:01

@blacksax

It's so culturally ingrained in NI and I find the attitude to haitch in this thread offensive and colonialist.

Culturally ingrained? How could someone from another country possibly know about that though? I certainly didn't until I read this thread. Why on Earth would I have known?

You see, I'm nearly 60 and I was born and live in England. For all that time I have pronounced it 'aitch' and we were all taught at school to pronounce it that way. Therefore, when I hear someone say 'haitch' I know it's wrong.

In England. Where the word is in the dictionary as 'aitch'.

Elsewhere in the world people pronounce English words differently. They are welcome to do so. But when English people are talking on a forum based in England about a word in the English language, then clearly they are entitled to say what they feel is the correct English pronunciation.

I am over 50, English and was also taught as a child that aitch is correct and that haitch is an abomination.

As an adult, however, I realise that everything I was taught at school was a product of a particular time, place, class, habit and history and that if I were to blindly accept everything today that my infant school teacher believed in half a century ago, I would be, frankly, an idiot.

Language evolves over time and place.

There are many varieties of English.

There is no authority of correct English.

Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive.