Skip to main content · Uri Plum, Portsmouth, UK What's alarming about it? Where I live pronouncing the haitch at the start of haitch has always been common practice. Are we afraid of a little regional colour slipping in and tainting received BBC pronunciation

Right, it's 'Haitch' okay lads, stop arguing it's stupid. ... As an ancient Scot who loves the English language and hates ghastly words which are actually now in the dictionary, I KNOW that aitch is correct. ... To Amanda who wonders what all the fuss is about, I'd say imagine if people insist on calling you Hamanda.

October 28, 2010 - Pedants, beware. The sound of says, ate, mischievous, harass, garage, schedule and aitch is shifting.

November 10, 2025 - H-dropping or aitch-dropping is the deletion of the voiceless glottal fricative or "H-sound", [h]. The phenomenon is common in many dialects of English, and is also found in certain other languages, either as a purely historical development or as a contemporary difference between dialects.

April 15, 2024 - H is "the most contentious letter in the alphabet", wrote the poet and children's author Michael Rosen in The Guardian in 2013, with "aitch" considered "posh and 'right'", while "haitch" is "not posh and thus 'wrong'".

June 14, 2018 - We’ve no doubt that psycho-physiological testing would show that haitch can raise goosebumps. Linguistic pinpricks are established early on in the acquisition process (“Don’t say ‘haitch’!”) and they arouse emotions like other childhood reprimands (including swearwords).

12. At 10:31am on 28 Oct 2010, LoonyLiberal wrote: I stopped pronouncing it as 'haitch' when I was about eleven. I don't notice how people pronounce it though, it's understanable in both formats and language evolves naturally. Que sara sara. -------- Or you could say Que sera sera...........

October 14, 2025 - Linguistic pinpricks are established early on in the acquisition process (“Don’t say ‘haitch’”!) and they arouse emotions like other childhood reprimands (including swearwords).

Answer (1 of 23): Some words have a silent “h” aitch and some words the “h” is pronounced. I say herbs, some say erbs. I say have done say av. Is it really difficult to grasp?

February 26, 2023 - The correct way to say ‘H’ is to say it as AITCH. The problem with some speakers (myself included) is that we can ‘over-emphasise’ the letter H so it comes out sounding HAITCH. I think this can stem back from our childhood when we were scolded for ‘dropping our h’s’ .

I say 'haitch', as in the phonetic alphabet, it is 'h for hotel', not 'h for atel'.You say it wrong then. But you won't hear that, because this is the same mentality as the zed/zee argument. The letter's name is Aitch.

May 22, 2018 - So, to borrow from Voltaire: You may disapprove of my saying “haitch”, but you should defend to the death my right to say it.

TikTok video from Mel and Phil (@melandphil)

Answer (1 of 3): It’s more logical in a way, but that is absolutely not acceptable (well, not normal) in American English. According to sources online [below] it is a feature of British English, so that explains it. I think I might have heard that once or twice from someone with a British accent ...

Answer (1 of 50): Ach! Poor education mostly. Or the excuse that ‘other letters begin with the sound they make’/’to remind us what sound it makes’. ‘H-aitch’ begins with an aitch. The letter ‘Aitch’ does not. There are other reasons behind pronouncing this phantom ‘H’, like Blaming the Frenc...

March 21, 2007 - David McKie: We cannot let the gentle aitch be hounded out of the spoken language by its harsher cousin.

630 Likes, 252 Comments. TikTok video from Sarah | GrammarSlammer (@grammarslammer): “Replying to @fatbob70 It's aitch, but say haitch if you want to. #aitch #grammar #pronunciation #Englishgrammar #english”. H PronunciationH = aitchoriginal ...

March 29, 2019 - I am quite sure anyone whose thoughts are occupied with the aitch/haitch issue have other thoughts, on other fora. But this particular forum is for pedantry. <sigh> ... Craftycat it's not just you Aitches! I'm often called by my initial (not H). Funnily enough we were talking about this at home once, and we all seemed to agree that it works for some initials and not for others. It works for anyone whose name starts with a B, D, T, H, G, for example, but it's unlikely you'd hear anyone saying, e.g.