H

W

wstol

Dedicated Member
Based on the topic by Susan about vowels, what is happening to the letter H?

My family and my school taught to pronounce the letter H, you pronounce it 'aitch'.

Then about 15 years ago some clever youngsters starting saying 'haitch'.

I have also heard the Irish say 'haitch'.

Could it also be an Australian thing (like the way the youngsters make a simple statement end with a question, as if they're saying 'are you with me?') or have I got it wrong?

It's always been 'aitch' with me, and I'm not changing - unless of course anyone can enlighten me.

Yours thoughts please would be most welcome. H.
 
I was always told aitch. I shall check Sir Ernest Gowers (Complete Plain Words) or Eric Partridge who wrote a lot about language.

This may take a little while ....
 
It's aitch in the US too. What I want to know is why you guys say zed instead of zee for the letter Z.

Best,

Flat Cap
 
wstol said:
Based on the topic by Susan about vowels, what is happening to the letter H?

My family and my school taught to pronounce the letter H, you pronounce it 'aitch'.

Then about 15 years ago some clever youngsters starting saying 'haitch'.

I have also heard the Irish say 'haitch'.

Could it also be an Australian thing (like the way the youngsters make a simple statement end with a question, as if they're saying 'are you with me?') or have I got it wrong?

It's always been 'aitch' with me, and I'm not changing - unless of course anyone can enlighten me.

Yours thoughts please would be most welcome. H.
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The misuse of the letter H is also a pet hate of mine. A family member maintains the first time she heard this pronounciation was in the Australian soap Neighbours several years ago'So i agree with the Australia theory.I have noticed it is now used by some of the younger presenters on television.It has also crept in to advertisments,Probably the most irritating is the young lady who has laser eve treatment and can now see in HAITCH D!!!. >:(
 
Flat Cap said:
It's aitch in the US too. What I want to know is why you guys say zed instead of zee for the letter Z.

Best,

Flat Cap
Click to expand...

Ah well, that is a question. No idea. The only time I would use Zee is in the alphabet song, A, You're Adorable, B, You're so Beautiful etc etc, which Howard and Marina used to sing on stage at the previews of Last of the Summer Wine. It ends W X Y Zee, it's fun to wander through the alphabet with you, and tell you what you mean to me. Zed would just not work here!
 
Rhi said:
Yes, I've always said aitch. I'm sure it's been the answer in crosswords, too.
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"British English dictionaries give aytch as the standard pronunciation for the letter H. However, the pronunciation haytch is also attested as a legitimate variant. We also do not ask broadcasters who naturally say haytch to change their pronunciation but if a broadcaster contacted to ask us, we would tell them that aytch is regarded as the standard pronunciation in British English, people can feel very strongly about this and this pronunciation is less likely to attract audience complaints.

Haytch is a standard pronunciation in Irish English and is increasingly being used by native English-speaking people all across the country, irrespective of geographical provenance or social standing. Polls have shown that the uptake of haytch by younger native speakers is on the rise. Schoolchildren repeatedly being told not to drop Hs may cause them to hyper-correct and insert them where they don't exist."

Jo Kim - BBC Pronunciation Unit

I particularly subscribe to the hyper-correct concept.
 
Sue said:
Ah well, that is a question. No idea. The only time I would use Zee is in the alphabet song, A, You're Adorable, B, You're so Beautiful etc etc, which Howard and Marina used to sing on stage at the previews of Last of the Summer Wine. It ends W X Y Zee, it's fun to wander through the alphabet with you, and tell you what you mean to me. Zed would just not work here!
Click to expand...

The particular song is, of course, US in origin. It has always intrigued me how and why US and UK English diverged. And it was not always the case that change came about in US. Sometimes the original taken there by the immigrants was preserved whilst the language was changing in UK.

It is, of course, possible though unlikely that the US also used Zed until the song came along. Zed did not fit so Zee was used and thereafter Zee became the norm in the US.
 
Have checked and standard English usage is 'aitch' - but my reference material is all pre 2000 so I could be out of date!

However I was checking my 1977 Chambers dictionary which I have had for 35 years. Some of the words in the appendix, i.e. the latest words/phrases are revealing:

databank
day care
digital clock
donor card


flexitime
greenhouse effect
headway
information science
ring fence
sleeping policeman
teletext
trannie

some have now almost become obsolete. However dictionaries, particularly in the mid 20th century, were not that quick on accepting new words so many of these would have been around for quite a while.

On checking my 1950s dictionary (Oxford Pocket 4th edition Fowler & Fowler) which was revised in 1946

new words included:

yaourt (yog(h)urt was an alternative)
whodunit
artificial silk (now usually rayon)
racialism
moped
chemotherapy
A-bomb
juke-box

There are many entries which reflect the greater role of the military in everyday life, entirely consistent with the date.
 
We had a martinet for a school mistress when we were approximately 9 to 10 years old .She drummed it into us at the time that it was aitch, not haitch.That was over 50 years ago, if she was around now it would drive her crazy how her "beloved" english language has changed. I forget the exact quote but it went on the lines of " there is an aspirant?? on words beginning with H but not on the letter itself!" ::)
 
I remember being taught to say an apple, as opposed to an banana, so I thought that 'an' was only used in front of a vowel, but then we came to 'an hotel'. What is that all about?
 
It makes my teeth itch hearing someone say 'haitch'.

It doesn't sound right.

Haitch bombs and Harry Haitch Corbett.
 
Sue said:
I remember being taught to say an apple, as opposed to an banana, so I thought that 'an' was only used in front of a vowel, but then we came to 'an hotel'. What is that all about?
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I think Wikipedia sums it up quite nicely:

"The form an is used before words starting with a vowel sound, regardless of whether the word begins with a vowel letter. This avoids the glottal stop (momentary silent pause) that would otherwise be required between a and a following vowel sound. Where the next word begins with a consonant sound, a is used. Examples: a box; an apple; an SSO (pronounced "es-es-oh"); a HEPA filter (HEPA is pronounced as a word rather than as letters); an hour (the h is silent); a one-armed bandit (pronounced "won..."); an heir (pronounced "air"); a unicorn (pronounced "yoo-"); an herb in American English (where the h is silent), but a herb in British English.

Some speakers and writers use an before a word beginning with the sound /h/ in an unstressed syllable: an historical novel, an hotel. However this usage is now rare. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage allows both forms a historic and an historic.

Some dialects, particularly in England (such as Cockney), silence many or all initial h sounds (h-dropping), and so employ an in situations where it would not be used in the standard language, like an 'elmet (standard English: a helmet).

I must confess I was way past school and any teaching I had in English before I heard anything about the use of "an" before a word beginning with the letter H.

But I was always bemused as a child by one of my father's sayings, "The H is silent as in overcoat".
 
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