Mike Lyle22/4/04 5:20
Sacha wrote in message
.uk...
Kay Easton21/4/04 7:26
In article , Sacha
writes
Jane Ransom21/4/04 4:06
Oh certainly. But the letter H is the only letter of the alphabet that has
its own spelling and it is 'aitch' not 'Haitch'. ;-)
But 'haitch' is a regional thing, isn't it? West Midlands dialects. (you
must have heard a lot of it in your younger days!) Rather like 'ain't'.
And like 'It were' around here.
I don't remember it from my younger days but we didn't get out much. ;-)
To me, this is a fairly modern curse and seems to be all around us......
"Haitch" is pretty well the norm in Wales, even among highly-educated
speakers.
I think Kay must be right and it's regional. But to me, it's a new and I'm
sorry, yes, irritating habit.
And, by the way, some of the other letters do have
spellings: we have "em" and "en", as well as "zed", but I suppose
"double-u" is cheating!
Mike.
But look at how they appear in the dictionary. Go to the letter A and you
will see 'Aitch' standing alone as "the eighth letter of the alphabet (H,h.)
You will then go to Z and see it written as "Z (zed.....) got to 'M' (m,
em) etc.
IOW, only 'H' has a spelling, the others do not appear under a different
initial letter. H does not appear as Haitch - in my Collins the entries
under 'h' jump from 'hairst' to 'haith' to 'haji'. Sorry - but H is the
only letter with its own spelling rather than pronunciation aid.
Has it stopped raining yet? ;-)
--
Sacha
(remove the weeds to email me)