Saying haitch.

[Chunkymenrock]

I almost never hear anyone saying aitch anymore. It's so infuriating! There is no such word as haitch. Am I alone in feeling so irritated? 😕

Having this fight with DCs at the moment. Sigh

to me, people who feel so strongly about haitch, exemplify little englander attitudes.
it just seems snobbish to me.
irish people, black people, and most working class southeners say haitch.
why should they change to please you.
get over it. it's your problem, not theirs.
by the way, you do realise that many irish people say, or for the letter r.

Awful awful awful and some teachers actually tell children that's how you pronounce it!

I’m not British but come from a native English speaking country. The first time I ever heard haitch was at a cinema in Greenwich. I could not understand what the person we referring to. Once explained, thereafter was always like nails on a chalkboard. I am so very glad it is not something heard anymore. (At least in my area)

It really irritates me when DD says haitch, I correct her every time! I remember her reception teacher saying haitch so it's probably her fault 🤣

Grew up in an Irish catholic household where it was haitch. Aitch sounds odd to me but I don't get het up about it

Agree it's Aitch. But mainly here to say it's Jay not Jeye!!

Yes, the word is spelt aitch and pronounced aitch.

No, adding an extra letter to a word is not a correct pronunciation. It doesn’t make any difference which country you’re in; it’s still wrong.

I wonder why so many people are confused by this?

It's sooooo common and makes my teeth itch!!

Well, I am actually common so I guess I'll carry on with my habitual haitching

It's perfectly correct in Ireland.

I'm not Irish but live there. Imagine my pain at having my English aitches constantly corrected to haitch by my children

How can it be correct? It might be said by the majority of the population but that doesn't mean it magically becomes correct.

I learned English as a foreign language and am German. I learned aitch but everyone here says haitch so I believed I must have learned it wrong. AHHHHHH

Here = I've lived in England for 10+ years x

It is not incorrect. As others have said it’s Hiberno English.

If you open the dictionary at A you will find "aitch" which is the name of the letter written H.
There are other letters that similarly don't begin with themselves - eff (not feff), el (not lel), em (not nen)... but nobody ever seems to say those wrongly.
It may stem from misconceptions about RP and "speaking correctly" when it was considered common to drop one's h's at the beginning of a word (so you wouldn't say you had "an orrible eadache"). However, IIRC, RP did have exceptions for words from French in which the h was silent (you would stay at AN otel but you would remove your hat for AN eiress).

Aitch and haitch are both correct, depending on where you come from/what dialect of English you speak. In some parts of England it can be marker of social class, but that isn't the case everywhere.

I remember my grandfather talking about a hell-shaped room. It took me years to work out what he meant. At least haitch has no other meaning.
I wouldn’t expect someone who had studied linguistics to express a view on it. I think that would be like expecting an anthropologist to condemn people for worshipping false gods.
I still say aitch, but then I also still say prIvacy, and kilometre with the stress on the first syllable.

@NigellaSeed

Agree it's Aitch. But mainly here to say it's Jay not Jeye!!

If I'm saying the alphabet or for any reason using the letter on its own it's jeye but if I'm spelling out a word or using the phonetic alphabet it's Jay

I think haitching has increased because h is the only letter that does not have its sound in its name,

Are they also saying wubble-woo? And yie?

J-eye also acceptable instead of jay.
Rhymes with I.

@MrsGface

Haitch is the standard pronunciation in Hiberno English. It’s not incorrect, it’s just different.

This.

It's an Irish shiboleth.