aitch or Haitch?

[prison break fan]

I have just been corrected by my five year old grandaughter over the use of the letter aitch. She tells me it is now pronounced haitch! This is how she is taught it at school. Is this really true? pbf.

[Green Aura]

No, not unless she's taught by illiterate morons.....but given the state of the education system over the last 30 years that may well be the case.

I'm sure I read an article, a couple of years ago, that said current primary and secondary English teachers had little or no knowledge of grammar etc themselves, so were unable to pass their skills on.

[Rosendula]

I always pronounced it Haitch as a child and was never told to do otherwise by any teacher, parent or anyone else. I'm not sure who taught me to pronounce it that way, but someone must have done. However, having hearing difficulties, I discovered as a teenager that saying words wrong can get you laughed at. I had just started secondary school and we were at the stage where we were all trying to make impressions and work out who to be friends with when I said (can't remember what I was talking about), "I've put it on the mankle piece". Well I got laughed at. I was quite angry that I had got to 11 years old and had not been corrected on this, and wondered what else I was pronouncing wrong. Keckle was one of them. However, the H-question never even crossed my mind. I knew that some people pronounce it without the H-sound but I assumed that they were h-dropping. So when I was 35 years of age and my mother suddenly, very out of the blue, started ranting about people saying "haitch" instead of "aitch" and stating vehemently that they are all stupid, I was rather taken aback to say the least. These days I find it very difficult to pronounce and try to kind of half say the huh, or else I will pronounce it the same way as the person to whom I am talking. That said, on previewing my post, I have realised I do pronounce it Haitch in the privacy of my own mind.

[snapdragon]

I was told at school (back in the dark ages) that Haitch came into use in areas where people habitually dropped their H's and, as it was never written down, it was assumed by the newly educated upper working classes to have an H dropped, so they added it.
Before being told this I assumed it was a regional thing as I was brought up in Lancashire by a londoner and a welsh borderer and at home it was aitch.

[MKG]

Very, very definitely no H in aitch - except the one at the end. Putting an H in front of that word is only slightly less annoying than the affectation now running rife amongst news readers - sikth instead of sixth. That one makes me grind my teeth.

Mike

[prison break fan]

Sorry Rosendula, but I am very definitely in the aitch camp, but I have a mankle piece and have just put the keckle on! How is your daughter doing, well, I hope. pbf.

[Rosendula]

Sorry Rosendula, but I am very definitely in the aitch camp, but I have a mankle piece and have just put the keckle on! How is your daughter doing, well, I hope. pbf.

Oh don't worry about it PBF. I'm not saying I'm right, just whining because my pet hate is being called stupid for not knowing something!

My daughter's fine, thanks for asking. She had her 20 week scan last week and has found out she's having a boy. Very unusual in our family. Cause for much celebration (and frustration at having to give all my little girl's girly clothes to charity).

[Millymollymandy]

Ah, now I know what a keckle is!

Aitch for me every time, along with scone and Beaconsfield. Now how do I write those phonetically with the correct and incorrect pronounciations?

I do have a slight problem with seeing letters the wrong way round so it is a standing joke in my family about Molly Sudgen and Schmittar cars. Also if I see a written word that I've never heard pronounced I just prounounce it in my mind the way I think it should be, until I learn otherwise. Luckily I learnt the correct way to pronounce affidavit before I went to work for a law firm!!!

[Green Aura]

sikth instead of sixth

[Millymollymandy]

I've just remember one that drives me nuts.... S being pronounced SH.

Particularly the word 'conSHumers'. Aaaaaaarrrrrrrggghhhhh.

[Green Aura]

Oh the list is soooooo long.

I don't think I'm going to read any more of this thread

[Silver Ether]

look in a dictionary its spelt without the "H" now is it spelt or spelled

[JulieSherris]

I've just remember one that drives me nuts.... S being pronounced SH.

Particularly the word 'conSHumers'. Aaaaaaarrrrrrrggghhhhh.

Haha... here in farming country, all you hear from the locals is SHtick, SHissors, SHtand... etc...

And yep, in our house, it's Aitch.

When we first moved here, we saw a lot of take away shops called Abrakebabra.... A - break - ee - baa - bra.....
Then I heard the advert on the radio for Abracebabra... to rhyme with abracababra!!
Duh!

[StripyPixieSocks]

Firmly in the Haitch camp here, that was the way I was taught

[StripyPixieSocks]

Seems it's a regional thing perhaps -

Is the letter H represented by the word aitch, or is it haitch ?

The Oxford English Dictionary specifies only aitch as the correct spelling, and omits haitch entirely. So if you thought aitch should have been haitch, you are a complete plonker, as thick as s--t.

But that doesn't take account of the fact that an awful lot of people in the UK, and other English speaking parts of the world, do say haitch, and have even been taught that it is the correct way to pronounce the letter H.

The origins of haitch appear to be Irish, and has mainly survived through teachings in Roman Catholic schools. It's also in quite common usage amongst Londoners, who while prone to dropping the H from the front of most words, are want to add it in haitch.

Admittedly it does seem to be rather regional, but if the OED is happy enough to take on colloquial words, and many which most of us have never even heard of, be they from before the Ark or newly invented, then why doesn't haitch have its place also ?

Having rejected haitch as an acceptable spelling, it condemns all those who use it to the dustbin of the illiterate and uneducated. Those who hear people using the, alleged, incorrect form, can get on their high-horses, point to the OED and show the 'less well educated' just how wrong they are. Of course, what they're really wanting to show is just how much better they are.

The fact that haitch kept its roots primarily in Roman Catholic education and has now been entirely rejected by the OED, and anyone half respectable, couldn't have anything to do with Protestants thinking themselves to be better than the Pope worshipping mingers in the past could it ?

Taken from: http://www.hippy.freeserve.co.uk/testiq.htm

So maybe BOTH are right?