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Pedants' corner

Aitch, NOT Haitch please!!!

(81 Posts)
Trisha57 Mon 02-Mar-20 19:54:15

It always enrages me when people pronouce the letter "H" as Haitch. Petty, I know, but it really gets my goat!

Marydoll Tue 03-Mar-20 15:35:00

The spelling of the letter H is spelled aitch, so where does the h come from, when some people pronounce it haitch.

Also, many dictionaries state that aitch is standard English, whereas haitch is considered non standard, but acceptable.
Acceptable, unless you are a pedant like me. ?

Grammaretto Tue 03-Mar-20 15:48:12

Around here the pronunciation is Hitch.
My kids was tort that at school.
Ay, bee, cee, dee, ee, eff, jee
Hitch, eye, jeye, kay . Elomenopee,
Cue, ar, es, tee, you, vee, dubbleyou, ex, why, zed.

The ay for orse rendition is a bit different too. It's C forth (seaforth) highlanders.
Just local variations.

BlueBelle Tue 03-Mar-20 16:03:22

It’s a generational thing and I hold my hand up and say I ve caught it too and now it sounds perfectly normal to my ears
Not really that much of a problem we get used to it like
Nest lays (nesuls) and Porcha (always Porsche in my day and al-monds which were always armonds or even Bo da see a, who suddenly became Boo dick a
Constant change we just need to get used to them

grandtanteJE65 Tue 03-Mar-20 16:23:29

Things like this irk us because we care about our language and we grew up in a time when learning to speak and write correctly was considered a good thing.

Grammaretto Tue 03-Mar-20 16:38:48

Nessles BlueBelle I remember now, thanks. Before they were that bad company selling dried milk powder to starving mothers in Africa.
Nescafé and presumably nessles milk. Was that the condensed milk?

Coolgran65 Tue 03-Mar-20 17:05:58

Marydoll with regard to Innishowen's post about how, here in the island of Ireland, you can tell a person's religion by how they would use aitch or haitch, you comment that this is a sweeping statement. Here in Ireland it most definitely would not be a sweeping statement.

I can absolutely back up Innishowen's post. It is well known and understood that the Catholic schools teach haitch and the Protestant schools use aitch.

A person using the haitch is more likely to be from the South of Ireland or in the North to have been educated in a Catholic Maintained School.

Marydoll Tue 03-Mar-20 17:17:20

I'm just uncomfortable with the fact that one is able to identify a person's religion by their speech and what type of school they went to.

It reminds me of when I was younger, in the West of Scotland , when applicants for a job, were often asked which school they attended, as it identified their religion and sometimes determined whether they got the job or not.

Kalu Tue 03-Mar-20 17:33:10

I was listening to GD1 doing her spelling homework. As it was words which began with the letter aitch I asked her why she was saying haitch. She was then in primary six and up until then had always said aitch. When I corrected her she told me that is what the teacher says and she should know Granny because she is a teacher? the whole class suddenly started saying haitch because their lovely teacher was from the North of England.

As it’s not how we pronounce it in Scotland it does rub the wrong way as we hear it as an error and sounds wrong.

paddyanne Tue 03-Mar-20 18:07:28

Mrswoo my SIL gets totally confused at some words ,my daughter insists on using scots terms for things with their daughter who has an english accent .When she asked her dad for a piece he had no idea what she meant .He did wonder if it was agun as he watches a lot of American movies where thats what a piece is ,the other one was skiddling ,he refused to believe that word existed

Oldernewgranny Tue 03-Mar-20 18:20:34

A girl after my own heart, I was also taught where to use apostrophes correctly, another bugbear of mine ?

Kalu Tue 03-Mar-20 18:40:31

paddyanne ?l

Stella14 Tue 03-Mar-20 19:09:56

It drives me nuts. A real pet hate. Especially, since it’s a common error made by TV news journalists and presenters, who trade is in the English language! Also ‘of’ in place of ‘have’ and americanisms of all kinds. When did we start ‘speaking to’ issues, instead of referring to them? ??

Fredney17 Tue 03-Mar-20 22:49:28

What gets my goat is people/forums referring to initialisms as acronyms. Most of Gransnet's 'acronyms' are actually initialisms. It's taken me a while to mention this, but, there, I've done so now. QED.

Marydoll Tue 03-Mar-20 22:56:21

Thank you for that info, Fredney, I have learned something new. I'm interested in the development of language, so I checked it out.

The difference between an acronym and initialism is that the abbreviation formed with initialisms is not pronounced as a word, rather you say the individual letters, such as FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), and DVD (Digital Video Disk*).

While I'm here, my pet hate is the use of hack instead of tip.

The Daily Mail is forever offering hacks to make life easier.

Coolgran65 Wed 04-Mar-20 00:46:03

Marydoll said....
"""I'm just uncomfortable with the fact that one is able to identify a person's religion by their speech and what type of school they went to."""

I very much agree with you, unfortunately it's a fact of life here in Ireland.

Growing0ldDisgracefully Wed 04-Mar-20 01:18:39

I agree about aitch/haitch being irritating, also using the word hack instead of tip. I always understood hack to refer to a type of horse, or to chopping something up.
However the thing which grinds my gears is something my in law's family all do, which is muddle up the word bought with brought. For instance, they will say "I've just brought a new coat", meaning they've purchased a new coat , say "I've bought a shopping bag with me" meaning they've brought the said item with them. Aarggh!

Elrel Wed 04-Mar-20 01:19:48

Bathsheba
Most Jasons use or answer to J!

welbeck Wed 04-Mar-20 02:00:57

i can't see why it bothers anyone.
it's obvious what is meant, and seems a perfectly acceptable form to me.
why do people get so annoyed. it's not immoral is it. how does it adversely affect anyone else how someone says H.
so are the majority of schools in ireland teaching it incorrectly.
or are you just narrow=minded, with an incorrigible air of superiority.

Lyndiloo Wed 04-Mar-20 02:32:17

Oh, haitch annoys me too!

What's really annoying me lately is 'Shrewsbury' (rhyming with 'mew' or 'few'), when it should rhyme with 'show'!

welbeck Wed 04-Mar-20 03:19:08

guess i shouldn't have wandered into this corner; is it for the equivalent of funny handshakes, little apron wearing, by invitation only members.
by the sign of the mortar board, maybe.

Grammaretto Wed 04-Mar-20 09:19:26

welbeck wink ... actually in real life I cannot wink but do you not think we should be aware that judgements are made and that to deal with prejudice we first must recognise it in ourselves?

Thus this thread is important if it makes even one person think about why something as simple as pronunciation grating on their ears, is a form of discrimination?

Grandma600 Wed 04-Mar-20 18:08:40

Haitch really bugs me...my children never used it, but I am noticing lately that they don't correct their own children, whose teachers seem to think that Haitch is perfectly acceptable...which it isn't!

BlueSapphire Thu 05-Mar-20 09:39:00

Haitch really annoys me as well. Our local radio has an afternoon presenter who runs an anagram quiz/game every day, and I dread the words with an H in them. When he spells the anagram out and says Haitch I just can't help shouting at the radio!

varian Thu 05-Mar-20 11:21:30

I've just heard a government minister talk about "haitchestoo"

I very much doubt whether she is one of qq's "leftie remainers"

Nanny27 Fri 06-Mar-20 15:37:50

jane 10 thank you for your advice. I have trawled through:
OED
OED illustrated
Collins
All reference ‘aitch’ as the accepted standard spelling and pronunciation of the eighth letter of the alphabet.