My son this morning said HAITCH

[Twiglett]

I should throw him out shouldn't I?

50 lashes

especially as he is a poet!

DS's teacher says 'Haitch'.
My grandmother (Yorkshire) said 'haitch'
Everyone I know from the Caribbean says 'haitch'.
DS says 'haitch'.

Throw him out if you feel you must - at least he won't be lost and alone in the bleak midwinter....

My father always said "an'otel" But he was unfeasibly posh!

I thought it was 'Otel too.(I've heard BBC news readers say it with a silent Aitch,so it must be true )

I think Cali is right here - letters have names as well as sounds.

The name of H is Aitch, but that doesn't have any effect on the sound it makes when used in a word.

Blimey i wish all i had to worry about was how my kids prounnounce letters.

Does it really really matter ??

But if loads and loads of people call that letter haitch, how is it true to say that it only has the name aitch?

I appreciate that language evolves, but that's like saying that just because lots of people say "What was you doing", that makes it gramatically correct.

In fact (to stretch the analogy right to breaking point!) it's like saying just because lots of people break speed limits, the speed limits are wrong.

And before anyone says that's ridiculous, I know, but you get my point - just because something is done often doesn't make it correct.

Well both grammatical conventions and traffic regs are built on pre-existing rules (of grammar and morality) whereas the names of letters are just conventional. So evolution is constrained for the former, but not for the latter.

like "Boris" or "Katya" ?

Numbers are hard in Russian

So you're saying that rules are rules but names are interchangeable?

~Fires up Analogo-meter~

So just because lots of people call that building The Gherkin, they should actually change its name from the Swiss Re Tower?.........

OK, that doesn't work as well, but whatever!

at Cali.

Think I've found a kindred spirit......... or, as a friend of mine infuriatingly insists, a kindered spirit!

it is called 'AITCH'

because it just is

there is no finer explanation than 'because it just is'

"if it is "aitch" how is the sound 'huh' - answer me that!!!!"

hmmm...then what about DOUBLE-YOU (never had to write that out before. 'ow t'e 'eck would you spell W??

(I LOATH HAITCH and JIE...)

OK HCali - great idea!

(I say "haitch" in Ireland - they all think I am a Brit now anyway as I have lost my accent but I say "aitch" in other circles!!!)

Ooo, good point NaeManger - and you didn't even need to borrow the Analogo-meter (TM)!

it's JAY rhymes with DAY. (oh maybe i'm wrong. i do have a canadian accent after all...)