"haitch"

[sunflower68]

I have always sounded the letter 'H' without the 'h' sound at the front, so it would look like 'aitch'. I am sure I was told long ago this was correct. However I reckon the majority of English speakers say "Haitch". Am I wrong here, after all these years????

[goldenfield]

No, you are not wrong. Here is the definition from Chambers:

H or h , sometimes spelt out aitch
n the eighth letter of the modern English alphabet, representing in Old English a guttural sound, gradually softened down to a spirant, and now often silent; in German notation = B natural (); something shaped like an H.

[jake-the-peg]

It rather depends on what you mean by "right" and "wrong"!

After all you wound't say an accent was "wrong" or "right".

The midlands accent is wrong but the London accent is right

So why should one pronounciation be right or wrong?

I would say your way was consistent with "received pronounciation" if that helps.

[jake-the-peg]

Sometimes spelt aitch
often silent

Not exactly definative!

Incidently I say aitch and my wife (who's Irish) says haitch - she thinks it's pretty universally pronounced that way in Ireland.

Is it important?

[goldenfield]

jake- the-peg - Chambers says 'sometimes' as most times it is not written out in full, but when it is, it is always spelled aitch, not haitch.

[jake-the-peg]

The question was pronounciation not spelling I believe

[jake-the-peg]

A more interesting question is actually where it comes from. Having had a quick scout around the net there seems to be a popular theory that it started out in Ireland or Australia, but as always in these sort of cases it's met with a resounding chorus of Australians and Irish who avow that they've never said "Aictch" and "their mammies would've baten them crooked if they had"


It's certainly not lazyness aitch is easier to say than haitch.

I personally rather like the Irish theory in that it rather explains the tendency of people to look down on those who use it.

Wikipedia also seem to go with that ( whether you place any store by that I guess is up to you) although they also cite Montreal.

[goldenfield]

Ok jake-the-peg - show me or the poster one site that has the pronunciation of aitch as haitch. Just because hundreds of people add the 'h' at the beginning does not make it correct English.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/74/A0167400.html

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionar y/entry/aitch

[Quizmonkey]

Nothing to do with accent or dialect or region: adding the initial h sound to the pronunciation of aitch is just plain incorrect and ignorant. Don't trust anyone on linguistic questions who writes 'pronounciation'...

the "often silent" has nothing to do with the word aitch but the letter H - as in hour, honest etc.

[jake-the-peg]

Er actually goldenthred if thousands of people use it, it does make it "correct English" - That's what dictionaries base their information on - common usage.

They don't sit in judgement over what is right or wrong.

Hence the furore over the inclusion of "gay" as a perjorative word as in " that's a really gay dog!"

Don't be a language snob!

[EverClean]

I'm sick of the language police trying to tell people how to use words. Languages are living things. Words are born whilst others die. There are hundreds of instances throughout history of people "who thought they knew better" trying to dictate to the masses what language or words they could use. Guess what? Every time the masses won! It's all about what people use and how people speak - not what certain people where taught in a classroom 30 years ago. Join modern times. Adapt or die.

[bookermel]

As Jake and Everclean say language evolves both are now correct. If it makes you happy sunflower your 'aitch' is more original I like this definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
It also replies to Goldenfield's request for a site that cites haitch as a correct pronunciation. ;-)

[goldenfield]

Oh so now you prove your point by deliberately misusing my username, jake-the-peg? ROFL.

I ask you again - if there are thousands pronouncing 'haitch' - making it 'correct English' - and dictionaries base their information on 'common usage' - why does there not appear to be even one dictionary with the spelling or pronunciation of haitch? Prove your point by showing me (and the poster) a recognised authority that does.

[goldenfield]

Hiberno-English isn't English, now is it? sunflower68 posted about the majority of English speakers, not any other nationality. LOL.

[drchasuble]

So jake-the-peg if thousands and thousands of people mistakenly say would of - should of - could of will those go into the dictionary as correct English?

I don't think so.

And it's aitch - pronounced aitch.

[jake-the-peg]

Sorry but usage changes - you can't sit in the road insisting that what you were taught is "right" and the other half of the population is "wrong"!

Do you say thee and thou?

How about whom? - that's now begining to be cited as archaic by a numer of sources.

It takes dictionaries a while to react but they document they do not proscribe - Wikipedia has reacted already.

Is American English not proper either?



I particularly like:

self-right‧eous [self-rahy-chuhs, self-]

�adjective confident of one's own righteousness, esp. when smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others.

[Origin: 1670�80]

Sadly not yet considered archaic!

[JamesEverton]

It is 'aitch', though.

[noxlumos]

Sorry Jake I'm with the "aitch" brigade. I use a slight "haitch" myself oweing to my accent, but I know, and always have done, that it is incorrect. Certainly language evolves but some things are correct and others are not and "haitch" is not.

[swannbaker]

Words such as gutted and united do include the letter T in spite of what footballers (and others) tell us . I cannot envisage the word GUED ever appearing in a dictionary. If aitch is good enough for Carol Vorderman ,it's good enough for me .

[sunflower68]

Thanks all, I am sticking to my guns here. Everclean if I was taught to say 'aitch' 30 years ago why on earth should I begin saying 'haitch'?? You will have me saying gu''ed next.

Jake it is important enough that I posted on AB....trivial perhaps but it seems to have created discussion.

Now......what about the use of 'off of'??

[aristotle]

The addition of the H to the name of the letter is what is known in the trade as hypercorrection. People have been told off so many times for dropping the h at the beginning of words like house, home, hospital, that they add it where it isn't appropriate e.g. haitch. It has now become so common that it is part and parcel of the English language. Personally I hate it.