'Haitch' or 'aitch'? How do you pronounce 'H'?

[TRex]

A very interesting article at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11642588

It covers a lot more than what the title suggests.

[Alan W]

Yes, that is an interesting article, TRex. Thanks for the link.

Picking up on one of the points raised, when Australian TV shows include clips from programmes made here in the 1960s, it's often noticeable how extremely posh and BBC many of the voices sound. Not just announcers, but people interviewed in the street.

[pat]

To 'normal' English people, posh voices can sound extremely irritating and affected - the queen's diction is a fine example. Which makes me wonder:

Can people from other English-speaking countries easily detect affected English accents, and do they have the equivalent in their own countries? For example, I can detect different American accents (although I probably wouldn't know which part of the country many of them are from), but I wouldn't know if one was considered more posh than the rest.

[Linda]

One always says 'aitch' - never, ever 'haitch'!!

However, I am guilty of saying 'sez' instead of 'says' ... not so posh then! 

[ilandrah]

I certainly say haitch, and sez.
Pat-io versus pay-shio is another that seems to trip people up. Personally, I prefer the first.
One of my favourite Chasers (Aussie comedy) sketches revolves around the pronunciation of the word negotiate.
You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49zF8m7ys24

[birdy]

I can hear the difference in British accents, even with my not-very-sensitive ear, though like Pat, I probably wouldn't know from which part of the country/social strata they come from.  But I think most of us can identify the "posh" accent - we tend to call it "plummy," I think.

I had an Anglophilic friend, born and raised in Brooklyn, who deliberately developed quite an "English" accent by going to lots of English movies.  He later moved to England, where of course practice probably improved it even beyond what we heard.  He told me that English people knew he wasn't English, but could never figure out where he came from.

I never heard any American pronounce the words other than as "aitch" or "sez" and I never had a clue that anyone would pronounce "patio" other than with a hard "t."  I was amazed to see that "PATIO used as a noun is very rare," according to the site <www.audioenglish.net>.

[rogue_mother]

Pay-shio? People really say that?!! Eeewww...

I'm not quite sure what all y'all mean by 'posh', whether you mean 'upper class' or whether you mean 'affected.'  In the United States, accent is much less of a class indicator than grammar -- not that the US has classes in the same sense as the British do.

There might be some in the US who say 'haitch,' but they would be few and far between, probably living in the backwoods of Appalachia. Right-speaking Americans would always say 'aitch' and 'sez' and 'pat-ee-o' and 'skedule' and 'guh-rahdj' or 'guh-rahzh'. And of course 'respite' is pronounced as though there were no e.

No doubt radio and television are responsible for some of the changes nowadays, but this phenomenon has been going on for centuries, witness the Great Vowel Shift.

[pat]

In the UK, so-called 'upper class' and affected usually go hand in hand, RM, although there are obviously exceptions.

I detest the whole concept of a class system since it implies that 'upper class' people are somehow better than 'middle class' people who in turn are better than 'working class' people. Exchange the word 'better' for 'richer' in the previous sentence and you have a more accurate picture.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who works for a living is 'working class', regardless of how rich they are. So there.

[Steadyguy]

In the UK, so-called 'upper class' and affected usually go hand in hand, RM, although there are obviously exceptions.

I detest the whole concept of a class system since it implies that 'upper class' people are somehow better than 'middle class' people who in turn are better than 'working class' people. Exchange the word 'better' for 'richer' in the previous sentence and you have a more accurate picture.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who works for a living is 'working class', regardless of how rich they are. So there.

Well, I think you need to qualify the word 'work' Pat. Maybe these rich captains of industry and bankers (who are back to their 50% bonuses incidentally!), maybe they 'work' for a living. Although I know where you are coming from and agree wholeheartedly.
I am known by many of my friends as 'Aitch'; never has anyone called me 'Haitch'.
Affected speech I have come across. That too is not to be admired. I suppose there is nothing wrong in learning to enunciate proper like. However if it is to create a superior image then I am unimpressed..

[technomc]

I am appy to say that i halways drop my 'H' whenever the word allows.....[i need all the breath i can get!!]. Owever..it does not always happly...owever posh one is......

[birdy]

My father, bless his live-in-the-past soul, always insisted we pronounce the "wh" words (when, where, etc.) as "hw" - as indeed they would have been in the original Anglo-Saxon.

[CathArtic]

My plummy, pommy Mummy ( self- appointed Protector and Preserver of the True English Language in the Colony of Australia ) was horrified when I came home from school in Grade 3 saying the alphabet with a 'haitch'. I was instructed in the error of my ways and adopted the 'aitch' school of thought (or no dessert). She explained the conflict with my teacher as being due to the fact that he must have been 'taught in a Catholic school' !!?? So many levels of prejudice in this statement, there would need to be a book.....
Another pronunciation which split the family when on a houseboat holiday, centred around my mother and her sister arguing over the correct pronunciation of 'dinghy'. Silent 'g' was supposedly more refined - which resulted our family staying on the bank, while my cousins went off in the said dinghy. Never any winners really

[pat]

Wow, Cath. Sounds like growing up in your house was a hoot! No such problems with my mother: she was an uneducated, unintelligent woman to whom the pronunciation of the word 'aitch' was irrelevant as it was largely a letter whose existence she failed to acknowledge anyway!

[a non-amos]

Belated reply to RM: We who live in the back woods of Appalachia pronounce this as "aitch" and not "haitch".

Our company makes a product dubbed the HST.  It took me aback when a manager from the U.K. pronounced the first letter of this acronym as "haitch".  I believe she is from Cornwall.

[rogue_mother]

Thanks for that, A, although I believe you live in the frontwoods and not the backwoods. My statement was more of an impression rather than based on any sure knowledge.

One pronunciation grated on my ears recently when i was watching House Hunters International on HGTV. A young woman from Brisbane who was searching for a house to purchase there pronounced the word here as hyarr (r not silent). I have not heard other Aussies pronounce it that way.