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? 😕

@DuckonaBike

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?

Surely the success of the English language is in flexibility and variants?

I live in Northern Ireland, and its one way of telling if someone is Protestant or Catholic (if you're a biggot and actually give a shit) - protestant schools teach aitch and Catholic schools teach haitch. It was a common sectarian jibe to ask someone how they pronounce the 8th letter of the alphabet.

@Dilbertian

Of course aitch is a word! It's the name of the letter between gee and eye.

I was always taught that haitch was wrong I think that might have been North London middle class snobbery.

I think haitching has increased because h is the only letter that does not have its sound in its name, so teachers are using haitch to include the sound.

OMG you've verbed it.

@CanIPleaseHaveOne

Surely the success of the English language is in flexibility and variants

Do you teach your kids to spell correctly?

In Ireland we only say Haitch

I'm the opposite to you. I hate when people say aitch.

Just noticed the comments from all the Irish people... that explains it. I lived in Ireland for the first few years of school.

I say haitch. Shoot me 😁

Aaaah yes we are the dinosaurs. I used to be very pedantic about this kind of thing, after all, if we don’t hold things to standards then won’t things fall towards chaos? But then I realised that in the long run and looking at the bigger picture, saying haitch instead of aitch doesn’t actually make much difference to anything really and saying one rather than the other doesn’t make anyone a better person. Don’t waste your infuriation on this! Direct it at something worth fighting for.

#Choccorocco but this is Pedants' Corner - this is just the sort of thing people will get annoyed about

@MrsGface

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

No. It's incorrect. It's just a mispronunciation. It isn't the end of the world but it is not correct in any dialect spoken correctly: sadly spoken incorrectly in most dialects.

Yep, haitch is standard in Ireland. People get strangely angry about variation in sounding of h, as the author of this excellent blog entry points out.

stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/an-aitch-or-a-haitch-lets-ear-it/

Favourite quotation - "In Australia some see the spread of haitch (through the efforts of ‘linguistically subversive Irish nuns’) as a measure of society’s ‘linguistic, even moral, disintegration’"

No. It's incorrect. It's just a mispronunciation. It isn't the end of the world but it is not correct in any dialect spoken correctly: sadly spoken incorrectly in most dialects.

That's just wrong. Standard British English really isn't the only correct pronunciation. Haitch is well documented, standard, and accepted in educated as well as popular usage in Ireland. (Strictly speaking, haitch is pronounced haitch. Aitch - yes, even as a six-year-old coming across the concept of "dropping aitches" in Enid Blyton I could guess it was pronounced aitch, in England).

books.google.co.uk/books?id=RN0p1uienWMC&lpg=PP1&dq=hiberno%20english%20dictionary&pg=PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false

@Chunkymenrock

I'm so glad I'm not alone. I even had to turn Radio 4 off this week because no one could say aitch and I could take it no longer.

Well, drastic problems call for drastic measures OP. I hope you have recovered from the trauma now.

[quote TheFoundations]@CanIPleaseHaveOne

Surely the success of the English language is in flexibility and variants

Do you teach your kids to spell correctly?[/quote]
Fair point I suppose. But haitch/aitch is about pronunciation rather than grammer and spelling I think.

The flexibility of the English language is what has made it the world player it is. Aitch may well be a victim of that ongoing openess and flexibility!

It is haitch! Hhhhhhhh? What is aitch? It's like a posh itch!
(But I'm Scottish and pronounce everything wrong)

Are you Catholic?

Haitch is standard in Irish English, Irish nuns have spread the use of haitch via teaching in RC schools.

@Chunkymenrock

I'm so glad I'm not alone. I even had to turn Radio 4 off this week because no one could say aitch and I could take it no longer.

What an overreaction.

Language can and does change, and I know more people who would say Haitch and Aitch.

I see it as a bit elitist, almost snobby, to care about something like this at this point, when the variant is widely adopted and used. There is an obvious reason for saying "haitch", which is that H is one of very few letters of the alphabet that don't have their speech sound in their name. It makes sense to say "haitch".

When language changes the best thing to do is accept it, because it's inevitable anyway. Whatever people use will be adopted into the language, and that's what makes it beautiful and relevant to its time. If people are using "haitch" there is a reason for it.

If languages don't change then they stagnate and die. Appreciate the colour and variety for what it is, and embrace it.

Sorry typo:

*I know more people who would say Haitch THAN Aitch

The Irish Shibboleth. I grew up in NI and remember kids at the park asking this, you could get a good kicking if you gave the wrong answer to the wrong people! Haitch was the Catholic pronuonciation, Aitch was Prod.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/haitch-or-aitch-pronunciation-letter-h-old-english-a8393766.html%3famp

Isn't it just the way some English people say the letter H? Like some Americans say zee instead of zed, or zero instead of oh or ought?

Different people will say differnt things, based on what they are used to or grew up with or hear around them.

There’s an underlying mocking and value judgement made about the haitch pronunciation and it makes me very uncomfortable.

This will really hurt you op, but I say both.

aittch when I am spelling my surname and haitch when spelling (some) other words. But I lived in Northern Ireland as a young child, with a Catholic Mother in a Protestant area because my parents were fucking lunatics.