Haitch in HSBC phone message

[ClaudiusTheGod]

Phone HSBC. A voice will thank you for calling Haitch S B C.

This is all kinds of wrong, isn’t it?

I dont know if this is true but I heard Moët is actually a Dutch word and should be pronounced with a hard T. Like Mowett.

Mr. M has a Dutch name so your pronunciation is correct.

There was so much of that sadly.

I once listened back on a call where a drunk American customer was actively racially abusing a young male phone agent (of colour, he had a traditional African name).

I reported it but was told a few weeks later that the customer would not have his account closed because he was a 'high net worth individual'. Pretty shocking.

Jesus. OK everyone knows how to pronounce Moët 😅

Nothing instantly reveals somebody’s ignorance as immediately as language snobbery. It’s ill-informed at best, out-and-out racist at worst.

You’ll never find a modern-day linguistics professor ever calling “haitch” “wrong”. Or any other non-RP pronunciation, for that matter. “Non-standard”, maybe, but not wrong. Anyone who says otherwise is far less intelligent than they seem to think they are!

Oh I didn't need to know that. Everyone I know says moey. Now I know it's wrong I shall feel obliged to say it correctly and will sound like a right plonker.

The same with chorizo. I know how it should be said, but don't you sound pretentious when you do it?! Even Croissant, TBH.

"But it isn't wrong in Hiberno English? Why is that so hard to understand? Do you tell Americans they are pronouncing herb wrong or oregano wrong(I mean you probably do but still)?"

I've never told anyone in rl that they're pronouncing a word wrong in my life.

I'm interested in your comment about Hiberno-English. I thought it was only catholic schools that taught haitch, with Protestants learning aitch.

I said “I am speaking English, your gym have asked me to carry out this survey on their behalf, feel free to end the call if you do not wish to participate” or words to that effect. He assured me there was nobody Scottish at his gym so that couldn’t possibly be true. I told him to hang up then. He continued to pretend not to understand so I deliberately slipped into my broad Glaswegian accent, rather than my telephone voice which was more clipped, for the remainder of the call. Took great pleasure in putting him down a peg or two, tbh. Quit after two shifts 😂

🤣

yes, they are both languages.

Doric refers to the Scots language as spoken in the northeast of Scotland

Lallans is The Scots language traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland

“Of colour” 😩

I didn’t realise that, thanks! Weird that they aren’t a choice on the census but Scots is?

Wiki on Hiberno-English for anyone looking to read a little deeper:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English

The extract on the letter H:

Lack of Haitch-dropping and occurrence of /h/ where it is permitted in Irish but excluded in other dialects of English, such as before an unstressed vowel (e.g. Haughey /ˈhɔːhi/) and word finally (e.g. McGrath /məˈɡɹæh/). The name Haitch /heɪtʃ/ for ⟨h⟩ is Standard.

Can we move on, or rather back, to a discussion on P Celtic and Q Celtic, much more interesting than H.

Nope- no regional variations accepted. At all. And actually, living where I did at the time, I'd say that the 'characteristics' of the type of people likely to use those regional variations were varied, even by todays standards think it would be a stretch to argue it's targeting a specific group.

Even 'umms' and 'ahhhs' were marked down (filler words). Becaise ultimately, as I said, one agent's right to produce things outside of the general standard did not trump the rights of the majority customer base to be able to clearly understand the call.

Ah that's grand so, so long as you stick to just telling people they are wrong on the Internet and not in real life, no harm done.

Is anyone else now stuck with building a remedy, for Kruschev and Kennedy ... as an ear-worm?

This. It really is disgusting how often anti Irish sentiments are displayed here.

Really? Non-rhotic usage was corrected? I find that incredibly hard to believe.

I apologise if you don't think my choice of language their was correct.

But as a Civil Servant used to adhering to my departmental language standards, this is currently the expected terminology.

I won't say what that has recently changed from as I'm beginning to see there's a lot of variation in what people deem is acceptable.

*there

Genuinely, what are we supposed to say? I thought, this was the current one? It's definitely the acceptable phrase where I work.

"Ah that's grand so, so long as you stick to just telling people they are wrong on the Internet and not in real life, no harm done."

Well it's an AIBU about pronunciation of a letter. So a place for robust debate and opinions. Plenty of people saying that others are wrong on this thread and I don't think I have been the unkindest or most ignorant at all.

Very happy to have been educated about Hiberno-English.

It really is disgusting how often anti Irish sentiments are displayed here.

This.

Why are so many people comparing it to a spelling or grammar mistake? They sound completely idiotic doing that.
It’s a regional variant. I’ve always pronounced it with a hard Haitch. Annoyingly MIL would often find reason to bring up that it was wrong, but never directed directly at me, even though I was the one who said it like that in the family.
It’s not wrong, it’s just pronunciation based on accent.
See power shower, flour, sour, hair etc