Aitch or Haitch

[Maggot4x4]

How do you pronounce the letter H? Do you know why you pronounce it that way? Does it annoy you when people pronounce it opposite to the way you do?

Aitch is the correct spelling of H. For the record, I pronounce it aitch.

[mudmouse]

Vote 1 for Aitch....the 'H' is silent:D

[Quiggers]

The dictionary description is aitch.

Haitch is an irish catholic variant...

...and is the reason why it's common in Aussie.

Annoys me, tho', and I've spent years correcting my kids (who attend a catholic school...)

GQ

[Slunnie]

I think the individual letter is pronounced aitch, but in use in a word it is usually haitch, but think that as it is typically used as haitch thats how its often said as an individual letter.

I don't even think about it to be honest, let alone be annoyed by it - there are more worthwhile things in life to get upset about.

[bigdog]

haitch for me.......but I am a POM ;)

[Utemad]

I say aitch.

In primary school we were taught haitch but even back then haitch annoyed me.
Haitch was usually used by the snotty, brown nosing girl.
Do I have issues:confused:

[WhiteD3]

is it 'ot or hot?

If your a pommy east ender then it's 'ot aint it. Otherwise your hot.

[bigdog]

as in 'it aint 'alf 'ot Mum!' :)

[DiscoStew]

The dictionary description is aitch.

Haitch is an irish catholic variant...

...and is the reason why it's common in Aussie.

Annoys me, tho', and I've spent years correcting my kids (who attend a catholic school...)

GQ

I went to a catholic school and have some Irish ancestry. Was taught Aitch at home and at school as the pronunciation of the letter.

Used to bother me but i got over it. If I had kids I would definitely correct them.

[p38arover]

I think the individual letter is pronounced aitch, but in use in a word it is usually haitch, but think that as it is typically used as haitch thats how its often said as an individual letter.


Not always. When I went to school, the correct pronunciation for "hotel" was "'otel" and it was not "a hotel" but "an 'otel"

Also, "honour", "heir", "hour", etc.

Ron

[loanrangie]

I onestly dont give a toss which way its spealt/ spoken, its up to the individual i think.

[100I]

i' is wo' you say tha' counts no' 'ow you say i'.

[bigdog]

Not always. When I went to school, the correct pronunciation for "hotel" was "'otel" and it was not "a hotel" but "an 'otel"

Also, "honour", "heir", "hour", etc.

Ron

They even dropped the Haitch from etc ???? :p:whistling:

[JDNSW]

Quiggers is correct. The "received English" pronunciation is "aitch", but the aspirated "haitch" is Irish English, and was spread widely by Irish immigrant teachers in Catholic primary schools in the first half of the 20th century. It used to be an easy way of identifying someone's religion, but today there are so many non-Irish teachers in Catholic schools and so many non-Catholics in Catholic schools and vice versa, that it no longer means anything.

John

[Redback]

Now there's a subject to bring up around the campfire:Thump::spudniksnore:

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Not always. When I went to school, the correct pronunciation for "hotel" was "'otel" and it was not "a hotel" but "an 'otel"

Also, "honour", "heir", "hour", etc.

Ron


would the world come to an end if we could prove Rons school was wrong?!?
:wasntme:

[FenianEel]

Quiggers is correct. The "received English" pronunciation is "aitch", but the aspirated "haitch" is Irish English, and was spread widely by Irish immigrant teachers in Catholic primary schools in the first half of the 20th century. It used to be an easy way of identifying someone's religion, but today there are so many non-Irish teachers in Catholic schools and so many non-Catholics in Catholic schools and vice versa, that it no longer means anything.

John

Ach! shock and begorrah, tis a terrible sin that JD:D

I'll post ye a "Har to spake Belfarsst" in the Mudpit tomorrow if i get a chance...it's hilarious and that'll give ye an education in har the folk in the Norrrth speak!!!;):D

[Quiggers]

Quiggers is correct. The "received English" pronunciation is "aitch", but the aspirated "haitch" is Irish English, and was spread widely by Irish immigrant teachers in Catholic primary schools in the first half of the 20th century. It used to be an easy way of identifying someone's religion, but today there are so many non-Irish teachers in Catholic schools and so many non-Catholics in Catholic schools and vice versa, that it no longer means anything.

John

Thank you John. These days, I think it is more of an affectation - a point of difference - for those who are inside the catholic business...

Cheers, GQ

[DeeJay]

Slightly off topic but I still drool over the Scottish lass I went out with a few times. When I asked her about her accent she said she was schooled in Scotland and they taught her to rrrrroll her rrrrr's.
I often wanted her to roll hers for me:D

[Quiggers]

But, deejay, did she have a rrrolls rrroyce?:D:D:D

GQ

[p38arover]

would the world come to an end if we could prove Rons school was wrong?!?
:wasntme:

From the Oxford Dictionary site:


Which is correct: 'a hotel' or 'an hotel', 'a historian' or 'an historian'? And why is it 'a European' not 'an European'?

The form an for the indefinite article is used before a spoken vowel sound, regardless of how the written word is spelt. If you say 'an otel' when speaking (which is now often regarded as distinctly old-fashioned), then it may be appropriate for you to write 'an hotel'; but most people say 'hotel' with a sounded 'h', and should write 'a hotel'.

[UncleHo]

G'day Folks :)

Aah! you can tell that Ron went to a good Queensland school :D Bet it was Churchie;) or at least in the era of spelling , punctuation, Verbs, Prob-Verbs, Nouns and Pronouns, Past Tense and Present Tense, and the CANE:eek::D:(:twisted:

Bung-Tiddley

[p38arover]

Yep, UncleHo - Calamvale Primary then Salisbury State High School.

Ron

[JDNSW]

From the Oxford Dictionary site:


Which is correct: 'a hotel' or 'an hotel', 'a historian' or 'an historian'? And why is it 'a European' not 'an European'?

The form an for the indefinite article is used before a spoken vowel sound, regardless of how the written word is spelt. If you say 'an otel' when speaking (which is now often regarded as distinctly old-fashioned), then it may be appropriate for you to write 'an hotel'; but most people say 'hotel' with a sounded 'h', and should write 'a hotel'.

Just to widen the debate - from Fowler (1998) " Opinion is divided over the form to use before h-words in which the first syllable is unstressed: the thoroughly modern thing to do is to use a (never an) together with an aspirated h, but not to demur if others use an with minimal or nil aspiration given to the following h.......
At the present time, especially in written English, there is abundant evidence for the use of an before habitual, historian, historic(al), horrific and horrendous, but the choice of form remains open."

John

[Maggot4x4]

Pronunciation
In most dialects of English, the name for the letter is pronounced /eɪtʃ/ and spelt aitch[1] (http://m-w.com/dictionary/aitch) (or occasionally eitch). Pronunciation /heɪtʃ/ (and hence spelling haitch) is usually considered to be h-adding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_fricatives#H-adding) and hence nonstandard. However it is standard in Hiberno-English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English). In Northern Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland) it is a shibboleth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth) as Protestant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant) schools teach aitch and Catholics haitch.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H#_note-0) The pronunciation affects the choice of indefinite article before initialisms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initialism) beginning with H: for example "an HTML page" or "a HTML page". The pronunciation /heɪtʃ/ may be a hypercorrection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection) formed by analogy with the names of the other letters of the alphabet, most of which include the sound they represent
Authorities disagree about the history of the letter's name. The The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Heritage_Dictionary_of_the_English_La nguage) derives it from French hache from Latin haca or hic, from which it can be argued that the pronunciation /eɪtʃ/ is a result of h-dropping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_fricatives_and_aff ricates#H-dropping). The Oxford English Dictionary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary) says the original name of the letter was /aha/; this became /aka/ in Latin, passed into English via Old French /atʃ/, and by Middle English was pronounced /aːtʃ/.

[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php'title=H&action=edit&section=4)] Value

H occurs as a single-letter grapheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme) (with value /h/ or silent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_letter)) and in various digraphs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digraph), such as ch (/tʃ/, French /ʃ/, Greek and Italian /k/), gh (silent, /g/, or /f/) , ph (Greek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language) words with /f/), rh (Greek words with /r/), sh (/ʃ/), th (either /θ/ like thin or /ð/ like then), wh (either /w/, /ʍ/or /f/: see wine-whine merger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_wh#Wine-whine_merger)). In transcriptions of other writing systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization), zh may occur (as in Russian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language) Doctor Zhivago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Zhivago)); this is generally pronounced /ʒ/ in English, although this rendition is not necessarily faithful to the sound in the original language (as in the case of pinyin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin) transcriptions).
H is silent in some words of Romance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_language) origin:

Initially in heir, honest, honour, hour; for American English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English) usually also herb, and sometimes homage.
For some speakers, also in an initial unstressed syllable, as "an historic occasion"; to retain the "an" and pronounce the H may be considered affected.
After ex when x has value /gz/, as exhaust.
For many speakers, after a stressed vowel and before an unstressed, as annihilate, vehicle (but not vehicular).
At the end of a word, as cheetah, verandah.H is often silent in the weak form (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_form) of some function words (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Function_words) beginning with H, including had, has, have, he, her, him, his.

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H

[UncleHo]

G'day P38arover :)

Norman Park State :) then Balmoral State High:( then tech for Automotive Trade Theory & Calcs;)

cheers

[charliebrisbane]

Hey Uncle Ho I hope you're not bagging Churchie boys. I went there and we pronounce it aitch.

BTW A lot of "Catholic" (primarily Irish Catholic). people I know pronounce onion, ungyon. I dont see the 'g' in onion so I dont say it like that.... anyone?

I married a bloody Roman Catholic so I guess that wasn't very "Churchie" of me.

Charlie

[UncleHo]

G'day Folks :)

I wouldn't sling off at Churchie boys;) but their Straw Boaters used to regularly sail out of the windows/doors of Trams going over Norman Creek Bridge:D


don't worry My missus is a Scouser, and she bags me for the way I say "Cockroach" as I say "Cockaroach";) but, when she gets upset and starts talking with her "Scouse" accent, nobody can understand her:confused:

cheers

[charliebrisbane]

UH, Churchie boys never had straw boaters as far as I remember. Our and my fathers generation had akubra's. BBC had Staw hats. Maybe Boaters were older still at Churchie, not sure though. Norman creek was well used when I was younger untill dead animals were found regularly floating past. Gross. What school did you go to if you picked on the Churchie boys so much?????
Charlie

[UncleHo]

G'day Charliebrisbane :)

Read back up to post 26;) and the era I am talking about is the late 50's early 60's, long long ago!:wheelchair:

cheers

[charliebrisbane]

Aaaahhhh! about Dads age. You poor Bastard.

Now back to onion and ungyon.

Charlie

[JDNSW]

Not directly related to this thread, but I had an interesting call from my 9yo grand daughter last night. For help with her homework. In English grammar. Neither mum nor dad could help, as they did not learn any grammar at school. It seems it is back in fashion!
(I don't remember having homework before I started high school?)

John

[Quiggers]

My 10 yo (year 4) gets lots of homework, which, surprisingly, is actually almost interesting. But he has a curious habit of knocking over a weeks homework in one sitting.

GQ

[Bigbjorn]

Only GPS boy's school in Brisbane that wore straw boaters was BBC. Everyone else wore grey felt Akubra style if a hat was worn at all.

[FenianEel]

H is for head