Every time I hear this on British TV, it is jarring to my ear. Some (all?) Brits pronounce the name of the letter H as “haitch” with a very pronounced “voiceless glottal fricative” sound (I got that from googling, it’s not something I knew on my own).
Is this a class or education or regional phenomenon, or do all English Brits do it? I’m familiar with the stereotypical (and possibly imaginary any more) Cockney, leaving the h’s off of the beginnings of words where they exist, and adding them where they don’t exist. But this seems to my non-rigorous observation to go across class and education lines at least.
I’ve heard from English friends that it’s an over-correction from other dropped H sounds (to avoid sounding Cockney), but I don’t have any cites for that. Some of my English friends pronounce it aitch and some haitch.
Yes, both are common in the U.K., I say aitch. I haven’t a clue whether it’s correlated with regional accents or not, I grew up hearing both around London.
This BBC article seems to think it’s a changing usage, but it’s really not clear what they are saying - I don’t even follow which direction they think its changing from that.
Blimey, there really is a wiki for everything. This is pretty much what I was looking for.
But it was worth the effort of posting to see that David Mitchell video. I know just how he feels (see some other thread I posted in just to point out that they used a word to mean the opposite of what it normally means). I now have a mental image for every time someone posts with incorrect grammar or diction.
(there’s a trap in that sentence, mind you don’t get shot)
Do you really think the takeaway from Mitchell’s ludicrous parody of a language peever literally murdering people should be: “Gosh, people are so careless with language, let’s press on with greater enthusiasm in our heroic pedantry!” Perhaps you should think again about who was the target of the parody in that sketch.
Perhaps you should read my post again with the intended ironic tone in your head, and you will see where I was coming from. Self-deprecation is like a delicate, exotic fruit. Try to write it down, and the bloom is gone.
That’s not how I read it. He’s pointing out that David Mitchell’s joke was self-deprecating, mocking Mitchell’s own internal reaction.
And now that @Roderick_Femm is going to imagine his rant any time he feels the same irrational reaction. Hopefully it’ll make him laugh and not take things so seriously.
You seem determined to make me out some kind of evil pedant with no self-awareness at all. In fact, I can be both things, a sometimes nit-picking pedant who gets irritated at people who show, by mis-using words, that they don’t read books, and at the same time aware that it’s not all that important in the journey of life. If you want me to shut up on the subject, that’s too bad because I’m not going to. You’ll just have to put me on ignore and miss all my pearls. Your life will be the poorer for it.
No, sorry, I was pointing out that my remarks about my own pedantry were supposed to be self-deprecating, even if they did not appear that way to the reader, thereby deprecating myself even further.
