H "atich" and "haitch" - please explain!

[coppit]

So, the letter H...

"aitch" and "haitch" - are both correct (so you just pronounce it how you like) or is "haitch" actually incorrect.

Thanks!

Excellent

It's not a question of the Irish language pronunciation of H, MIF (there is no pronounced letter H in Irish; modern Irish spelling replaced the original dot {"seimHiu", pr. shave-oo the original H there would have been a dot over the M} with the letter H. The seimhiu mark was used over the letters B, C, D, F, G, M, P, S, T, and it changed the pronunciation of those letters the modern H doesn't have a role in Irish except as a pronunciation modifier, just like the seimhiu dot it replaced. The vast majority of English-speaking Irish people say Haitch. And it's not, contrary to what the Wikipedia article suggests, because Catholic Irish people historically had an inferior level of education. Good quality Catholic education was available to and availed of by Irish Catholics for centuries. Haitch is standard in Hiberno English. It's a letter imported from English and the pronunciation may have come at the same time. It's worth noting that many terms and words used in Hiberno Irish date to Elizabethan times or even further back, and in some respects it's almost like a window into the linguistic past. I'm not saying Haitch is one of those fossils, but it might be.

Anyone ever heard the American pronunciation of Fifth as Fith? Is this a bit like Sicth for Sixth?

math - that was really interesting. I know nothing of Irish English, really - is that a special interest of yours?

I ALWAYS say Haitch and I have ALWAYS known you are supposed to say Aitch.
I say it on purpose to annoy anally retentive people...
HHHHHHaitch HHHHHHaitch HHHHHaitch

Haitch

Yorks / Lancs accent, Blu? How does that go?

Sacrilege ( buffs up Yorks chip on shoulder - sorry, on t')

I regularly used to get absence notes from parents of my West Riding pupils saying ' Kylie-Shevaun was off has she as ad a cough'. I got used to it after the first few.

I think this illustrates the ' trying too hard and getting it wrong' school of thought.

LadyG - would you write ' he dropped his aitches' but read out it out as ' he dropped his haitches'. Aitch is the only spelling of the word. Just wondered.

This drives me mad.

It's definitely aitch! I think people get confused because obviously most words beginning in aitch are pronounced with a 'huh' sound so people think that the letter itself is prounounced in the same way!

Grrrr...

messylittlemonkey err have you read the other posts? Its not people getting confused!! (unless you are saying that people in the regions and Ireland are easily confused...)

I'm from Yorkshire but spent most of my childhood in Lancashire.

IME, the use of 'haitch' rather than 'aitch' was linked closely to class and level of education rather than it being a regional variation.

I'm not saying that therefore if you say 'haitch' you must be thick, I'm just refuting the idea that it's part of a Lancashire or Yorkshire dialect.

misshardbroom I think it probably depends on the area of Lancashire, accents vary a lot. I'm from the part nearer to Liverpool and the Irish influences there mean haitch is prevelent. Obviously people speak with an entirely different accent in say Wigan, or near Manchester.

In Ireland today it still depends on your religion which way you pronounce it. My children are being taught the same way as I was so don't see it changing anytime soon.

Hiberno English is my native language, Habibu.

I think the 'thirdy' thing is a function of the general American use of a D sound for T - as in 'dirdy', 'electricidy', etc. But my exMIL used to say 'fith' (usually when she was channeling Blanche DuBois) and it used to drive me nuts. I've heard others use it too, mainly ladies of a certain age.

I wonder whether the people who get all funny about haitch also judge people on whether they put milk in the cup before or after tea?

oooh yes milk first

I'm "posh" Glasgow () and say "aitch" (and FWIW, "jay") and hate hearing "haitch" and "J-eye". To my (snobbish ) ears, they just sound uneducated.

Poor ds is getting indoctrinated with "whatever the teacher says, "Haitch" and 'J-eye' are wroooong"

Can I just add that it drives me mad when people say "I done" instead of "I did"? I've been told this is a Kent thing!

I'm in the Aitch camp btw.

BTW - I put in milk afterwards, but do drink posh leaf tea - our own blend of darjeeling and earl grey..... (yes, I know it's a bit poncy )

But prettybird, isn't that how the Queen has her tea? Your blend sounds lovely.

The "done" etc thing is not just Kent - it is very common on the West Coast of Scotland - and drives me up the wall.

"I seen that", "He's went to the pub" "They done that"

It is an nice blend - not too perfumed but delicate at the same time. But at the moment we are having great difficulty finding Darjeeling loose tea - all the major supermarkets seem to have stopped stocking it

I'm with everyone in the aitch camp. The alternative drives me nuts - the reaction of DH even stronger!! However, we feel we are really up against it as DS1 spent 4 years in an east London nursery and is now at school in the area. All the staff at nursery and an alarming proportion of the staff at school say ''haitch''. Arraggghhhh.

Almost as bad but not quite there is the use of 'is it?' e.g.
'Your baby has really grown'.
'Yes, he's 21 pounds now.'
'Is it?'

Possibly an east london thing again. I was born in Stockport and we never said that or dropped our aitches.

I put milk in my tea afterwards but only because I make it too horribly milky otherwise.

Sorry the thread is too long to read it all so sorry if I'm repeating but;

"MIFLAW Tue 19-Jan-10 11:32:44
Isn't it down to over-correction? i.e. the "working classes" drop their aitches; therefore to pronounce it is a sign of education; therefore you start pronouncing it where it shouldn't be and, frankly, show yourself up."

This is basically what it is.
It's correct term is 'hypercorrection'.
As Miflaw said, in trying to avoid being stigmatised, people may be conscious of the fact that their dialect will often 'h' drop so they will may add an 'h' where one shouldn't be pronounced eg: 'I hurt my harm' (arm)
'Harm' in this case is said to be 'hypercorrect' in the same way that 'haitch' is hypercorrect.

Sorry if this has all been said a million times already!

"Add message | Report | Contact poster By Habbibu Tue 19-Jan-10 14:37:49
We really, really need David Crystal on for a webchat... "

Great idea

I think it is pretty crap to judge people and get so het up about such a trivial issue. I say 'haitch' sometimes and I am not uneducated, I have a Masters Degree. I just have a bad memory and forget which one is 'right', and to be honest it's not high enough on my priority list of things to remember.