# British English - say the alphabet, and stop when you get to H **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 24, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655 "2021-02-24T17:34:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/41 "2021-02-26T01:55:46Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I’m disputing more than just the exact spelling, I’m questioning whether the words really _exist_ as a generally accepted part of the language. And that’s certainly not dictated by dictionaries. Of course they exist. How is “aitch” _not_ a word? H alone is just a sound, it doesn’t somehow carry its name around with it so you know what it is called, you need its name, “aitch” (or “haitch” if you prefer.) You say the letter names are rarely written so have limited value, but we _say_ them all the time, and what we say is “aitch” or “double-u”, we don’t _say_ H and W, those are just sounds. Even if the letter names were never written and didn’t appear in the dictionary, they’d still be words, they’re still sounds we make to identify an object or idea. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/42 "2021-02-26T01:56:14Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > Depends on the dictionary you consult. The Oxford English Dictionary records both _aitch_ and _haitch_ \*(as well as _H_ , which is a separate entry), _zed_ and _zee_ (as well as _Z_ ). Well obviously you need to refer to the dictionary that supports your point of view. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/43 "2021-02-26T04:33:39Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > H alone is just a sound, it doesn’t somehow carry its name around with it so you know what it is called, you need its name, “aitch” (or “haitch” if you prefer.) No, the relationship between sound and writing is arbitrary. Just because the insect “bee” is spelled like that does not mean the homophonous letter “b” must be spelled the same way. When we want to refer to a letter in writing, we almost invariably just write the single letter. If you wrote “bee”, the reader would think you were writing about an insect. We write “b”. Why do you think the sound we make when we pronounce that letter that we write “b” requires some secret\* spelling other than the spelling that we actually use in practice, “b”? \*I’m not just being sarcastic here - I say “secret” because if these are words, many (most?) well educated literate native speakers have to guess at least some of the 26 spellings, because they just never use them. > [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > How is “aitch” _not_ a word? It’s a word if we use it as a word. That’s really the only one of the 26 that you claim “must” exist that I would say I’m familiar with. Probably because the pronunciation of “h” is a matter of some dispute. Again, I’m not holding to a firm position that these words are definitely _not_ part of the English language. I think it’s marginal, and I’m just challenging your assertion that _a priori_ they _must_ exist independent of whether anyone actually uses them. I think the strongest point you’ve made is that they are used to construct other words that definitely are commonly used like okay, emcee, tee-shirt. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/44 "2021-02-26T04:55:17Z")
Possibly, _aitch/haitch_ and _zed/zee_ get written out precisely because variant names exist for these letters, and it’s sometimes necessary to indicate which name/which variant is being invoked. As already noted, the OED has entries for these names (separate from the entries for the letters _H_ and _Z_), but it has no relevant entry for _bee_ as the name of the letter B, and it has no entry for _double-you_ or anything similar as the name of the letter W. In the entries for all letters, the pronunciation is indicated using the IPA, but having separate entries for the names of letters is exceptiona. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/45 "2021-02-26T05:18:10Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > When we want to refer to a letter in writing, we almost invariably just write the single letter. If you wrote “bee”, the reader would think you were writing about an insect. We write “b”. Why do you think the sound we make when we pronounce that letter that we write “b” requires some secret\* spelling other than the spelling that we actually use in practice, “b”? Yes that is the convention we use and understand, but none of that changes the fact that B has a name. The letter on its own it is just “buh”, that is the sound it makes, the name it has is “bee”, or “be” if you like, the spelling doesn’t matter. There is a word, written or not, that represents what we call the letter B. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/46 "2021-02-26T05:25:08Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > The letter on its own it is just “buh”, that is the sound it makes It makes a sound of its own accord?🙂 If you write “B” on a piece a paper, show it to a native English speaker, and ask them to say what is written on the piece of paper, do you want to bet money on the outcome? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/47 "2021-02-26T05:34:09Z")
Yep, they will say the word that is the name of the letter. They will say “bee” or “be”, they won’t say “b”, because that doesn’t actually represent the sounds that make up the name of the letter. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/48 "2021-02-26T05:35:23Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > It makes a sound of its own accord? You know what I mean. It represents a sound. The sound it represents is not the name of the letter. The name of the letter is the group of sounds we make to identify the letter. It is also a word. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/49 "2021-02-26T05:36:40Z")
## Definition of _word_ (Entry 1 of 2) 1a(1) **:** a speech sound or series of speech sounds that symbolizes and communicates a meaning usually without being divisible into smaller units capable of independent use Nothing there about how useful the word is or how often you might see it in print or whether the spelling is well defined. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/50 "2021-02-26T05:43:07Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > You know what I mean. No, I really don’t. The sound that we assign to something written is arbitrary; the way we write a given sound is arbitrary. When we are talking about the letter of the alphabet we say /bē/, and the way we write this is “B”. We do not write “bee”, and there is no necessary implication that a word “bee” (that we never use) must exist. Conversely, when we see “B” written, we know that refers to a letter of the alphabet, and if called upon to read it out loud we say /bē/. If we see “bee” written, we would pronounce it the same way, it is homophonous with “B”; but we would assume someone was writing about an insect. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/51 "2021-02-26T06:01:23Z")
Plus, most letters are capable of representing a range of sounds, and there are many sounds that can be represented by more than one letter. There really isn’t a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds. So we usually can’t talk about “the sound made by” a particular letter; just about “various sounds which can be made by” that letter. The letter C is pronounced /siː/; It doesn’t follow that its name is “cee” or “sea” or “see” or any other rendering in which that pronunciation could be signified using the orthographical conventions of English. And the “sound it makes” is different again; that could be represented by -k- or -s- or, in conjuction with other letters, it can make other sounds like -tch-. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/52 "2021-02-26T06:04:53Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > When we are talking about the letter of the alphabet we say /bē/, There’s a word for that, it is “bee”. > [@UDS1](#): > > The letter C is pronounced /siː/; It doesn’t follow that its name is “cee” or “sea” or “see” or any other rendering in which that pronunciation could be signified using the orthographical conventions of English. And the “sound it makes” is different again; that could be represented by -k- or -s- or, in conjuction with other letters, it can make other sounds like -tch-. Again, it doesn’t matter what the spelling is, the fact is that there is a name for the letter C, and the name is a word. A word being as defined in my previous post. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/53 "2021-02-26T06:06:39Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > If you write “B” on a piece a paper, show it to a native English speaker, and ask them to say what is written on the piece of paper, do you want to bet money on the outcome? If someone had only ever been taught the sounds letters make and not told what the letters are called, how would you show them how to say the name of the letter B? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/54 "2021-02-26T06:38:17Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > If someone had only ever been taught the sounds letters make and not told what the letters are called, how would you show them how to say the name of the letter B? If they knew the IPA I could write it out as /bē/, or I might tell them it is pronounced like the verb “be”, or the insect “bee”, or the name “Bea”, since these are all homophonous with the pronunciation of the letter “B”. So what? I might equally well tell someone who didn’t know how to pronounce the name “Bea” that is it pronounced like the letter “B”. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/55 "2021-02-26T06:42:47Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > If they knew the IPA I could write it out as /bē/, or I might tell them it is pronounced like the verb “be”, or the insect “bee”, or the name “Bea”, since these are all homophonous with the pronunciation of the letter “B”. So what? Or you could just tell them it is called “bee”. Why muck around with IPA or trying to explain it reference other things, when the letter B has its very own name, “bee”? It seems that in your reluctance to acknowledge that letter names are words, you will go to great lengths to avoid using one. Note that for letters whose name and one of their sounds are the same, such as A, E, I, O and U, the single letter on its own _is_ sufficient to spell their name. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/56 "2021-02-26T06:43:30Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Again, it doesn’t matter what the spelling is, the fact is that there is a name for the letter C, and the name is a word. A word being as defined in my previous post. If so, that word is written “C”, and pronounced /siː/. In other words, the letter and the name of the letter are written the same way. Or, if you prefer, the letter is its own name. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/57 "2021-02-26T06:47:58Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > If so, that word is written “C”, and pronounced /siː/. Good. So we agree that C has a name and the name is a word. Now the disagreement is over how to spell it. You say it is spelled “C”, I say, and the dictionary agrees, that it is written “cee”. ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/58 "2021-02-26T07:18:49Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Good. So we agree that C has a name and the name is a word. Now the disagreement is over how to spell it. You say it is spelled “C”, I say, and the dictionary agrees, that it is written “cee”. Dictionaries differ: the Oxford English Dictionary does not record “cee” as the name of the letter in question. Plus, of course, a disagreement over how to spell a word may presume that a word has one, and only one, correct spelling. This is not necessarily the case. While English spelling has been largely standardised, there may still be words for which there are no standard spellings, and the names of (most of) the letters may be among them, if only because the occasion for writing out the names of letters rarely arises. Or, it may be that the spellings that overwhelmingly predominate in common usage (e.g. “C” as the spelling of the word which names that letter) are arbitrarily discounted, and assumed not to be spellings of words. If “I” can be the spelling of the word which we use as the first person pronoun, then obviously it can also be the spelling of the word which names the ninth letter of the alphabet. And if “I” can be the spelling of the word which names the ninth letter of the alphabet, then “C” can be the spelling of the word which names the third. And I think “C”, to name that letter, is far more commonly used than “cee” is. So on what basis would we say that it’s not the predominant spelling of the name? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/59 "2021-02-26T15:56:55Z")
The problem with “C” as a spelling for C is that it carries little information about how to say it (it doesn’t have the “ee” sound). An extreme example is W. I, on the other hand, is one of the sounds the letter I represents, and so it is a useful spelling. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2021, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655/60 "2021-02-26T17:18:12Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > If they knew the IPA I could write it out as /bē/ I assume you mean /bi:/ (or you don’t mean IPA). The way you wrote it out is not IPA, but it is what you’d usually see in at least American dictionaries, with the e-macron (ē) representing the IPA /i:/ sound. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-english-say-the-alphabet-and-stop-when-you-get-to-h/933655.md?page=4)