The alphabet and 'H'.

[Thatbliddywoman]

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.

like Ay sounds like I'm having a..

To me
I'm very confused

@TheMarzipanDildo

People are dreadful about ‘Haitch’-sayers on Mumsnet. It’s tantamount to murder!

Right. The first page establishes that it's a regional variation with fairly sensitive political connotations in some places.

But this is MN so we'll have 300 posts about how awful that variation is and how much they judge those who use it.

I’m a real snob about ‘haitch’. Ugh. It seems so common. 🤭

I also don’t know what you’re getting at.

I say aitch.

I was slightly confused by a "Jemma with a j-eye" once. I think that's common in parts of Scotland.

To be fair a lot of the letter names start with their sound! Bee, Dee, Jay, Kay, Pee, Tee, Vee, Zed.

@CareBear50

Huge connotations in NI. Generally speaking, Catholics say Haitch, protestants day Aitch.

If you want to know someone's background, ask them to spell "hat" lol

This is amazing.

I've always said 'aitch'. Because that is CORRECT (it's the hill I'll die on).

I didn't know that about the Protestant/Catholic thing. I'm not Catholic so fall on the Protestant side as default (raised C of E, athiest now). Not from N.I.

@chitofftheshovel

I say haitch with a silent aitch.

My son who went to an expensive prep school in mid 2000 was taught to say "haitch". Used to drive us mad.

What OP is saying is that people who pronounce it haitch often rationalise doing so by saying you pronounce the h at the beginning because it's the letter h. OP is saying why not then do that for f (feff), s (sess) w (wubbleyew) etc. I get it.

My partner says haitch - I say aitch. Aitch is right; haitch is an abomination IMO. Our 4yo DD is very confused!

@QuentinWinters

I have no idea what the op means. What do you mean we make H have its own sound?

Op means by saying haitch, people are sticking a 'huh' sound on the front of aitch for no apparent reason ie putting the letter sound on the front and we don't do that with other letters randomly. M is em not mem for example. L is el not lel.

Haitch

I'm honestly confused, lots of letters do sound the letter (as above, pee, tee etc) and H is pronounced 'Aitch'

Weird.

There's only one "H" in "aitch".

I am horribly snobby about Haitch and,I don't care.

Yip, it's a shibboleth where I'm from (NI) and a very unpleasant one at that. "How do you spell hospital?" was a phrase I heard too often.

Yip protestant/Catholic thing in Northern Ireland. We are Protestant and son went to Catholic speech and language unit and he says haitch however. Rest family say Aitch lol

My DS was Def taught Haitch, at school and speech therapy. But then we also say Mom so...

"Aitch" does contain its own sound, just in a different form. You can't have "ch" without an H.

I personally don't care about h/aitch so much, but I get tight-lipped and stony-eyed when my children come out with "zee".

Op means by saying haitch, people are sticking a 'huh' sound on the front of aitch for no apparent reason ie putting the letter sound on the front and we don't do that with other letters randomly. M is em not mem for example. L is el not lel.

But em contains the /m/ sound already. Ell contains the /l/ sound. There's no /h/ in aitch (/ch/ is different) but there is in haitch.

My name is Helen, it begins with an aitch.

Atheist of very strong catholic ancestry

Do I care how anyone else pronounces aitch, do I fuck?

Irish people say haitch. English people say aitch. I can't wrap my head around aitch

IT'S AITCH!!

@kursaalflyer lol at FEFF 😂

It's because it came from French (hache, meaning axe, think hatchet) and in French, aitches are dropped.

Catholic's say Haitch. Protestants say Aitch!