It's *aitch* [angry]

[ohmymimi]

Justine Greening on 'The Sunday Politics' constantly saying 'haitch' - beyond irritating.

aitch

Haitch

I am so using the 'wubbleyou' argument the next time my OH says 'haitch.' Mind you, he uses the word 'jamp' as the past tense of 'jumped' so I think he's a lost cause.

Wiki on H

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H

Apparently aitch/haitch is a Protestant/catholic split in NI!

Haitch is thought in some "English for forriners" classes - eight and aitch are just to similar to the ears of some nationalities, haitch helps to "hear" that it's a "H".

makes more sense practically.

oh and I can say forriners.
I'm Hungarian so have social immunity!

Yup doctrine. I was tortured at primary as the only catholic with the haitch/aitch thing and being called helen they used that too so i'll hold on to my haitch now im an adult and cant speak how i choose.

In Northern Ireland if you say aitch you're Protestant and if you say haitch you're Catholic.

Sad but true.

Are you sure you're not 'Ungarian, Zing?

to be perfectly correct?
Magyar vagyok!

I'm the daughter of a Scottish Catholic and she's never said haitch!

f=feff
l=lell
m=mem
n=nen
r=rar
s=ses
w=wubblyou (genius)
x=?????
y=yiye

no, all wrong. Except wubbleyou.

It's aitch. One of the peculiarities of English is that the letter H, written as a word, doesn't start with an H!

Oh I clicked on this thinking the old-timer Aitch was back with an interesting rant. Where has she gone (apart from writing the round-up)?

Jai is definitely pronounced Jay. It's Indian.

Of course it's 'aitch'. Does anyone think the Queen or landed gentry would say 'haitch'? Just because people are ignorant/are taught wrongly/are from Ireland, doesn't mean that 'haitch' is right or acceptable.

skillsandtea, by "Jai" I was not referring to a name (oh why did I use a capital on a pedants' thread!) but the trying to describe the sound given by many Scots for the letter j. Note how in Fanny Fifer's post "jai, kay" j and k do not rhyme.

Freckled Leopard I don't think linguists would agree with you there!

I like Zing's point on practicality and maybe I'll revert to haitch!

What the hell is wubblyou?

freckledleopard are we all supposed to talk like the queen/landed gentry to be considered "not ignorant"???

I really don't think that anyone speaking with a regional variation of English has been wrongly taught or that their speech is unacceptable...

The (historically) dominant RP culture has imposed it's own linguistic norms on what is acceptable, but I don't think that anything outside of that is automatically wrong. (As an RP speaker I say 'aitch', but my children will say 'haitch' as do most educated, cultured and linguistically acceptable people where we live!)

It really amuses me how middle-intelligence English people get so wound up about this. :o

It's like if they were taught something at primary school IT MUST BE TRUE!

And anyone who does otherwise IS WRONG AND THUS STUPID.

It's hard not to judge!

I'm sure linguists and lots of others won't agree. However, I am of the belief that RP is the 'correct' way to speak and the pinnacle of perfect speech. Listening to old BBC footage with the wonderful voices makes me smile.

Oh, and katplva - I wouldn't normally comment, but this thread is in Pedants' corner, so should point out that it's ONLY means it is or it has. ITS is the possessive.

"However, I am of the belief that RP is the 'correct' way to speak and the pinnacle of perfect speech."

:o

Arf!

Loving your work on this thread.

"pinnacle of perfect speech" :o :o

Yes we all have our preferences. RP is one of my least favourite accents. (I don't like it when the Danish actor in Borgen moves into English RP, when at other times characters sound as if they could be speaking snippets in Irish English or Northern English and I love it!)

Landed gentry? (Checks date is still 2013).