A or An: Probably a very basic grammar question.

Similarly we say 'a horse' and 'a hedgehog' because these begin with a consonant sound, but we say 'an hour' and 'an honest man' because these begin with a vowel sound as the 'h' is silent.

Or Australia.

An house, an hospital is because of you southerners and your (h)aitch-dropping ways.

xpost

*waits for one of the copyeditor grammar fiends to tell me there's a better rule than that*

My sad fascination with speech in effect: I find it really interesting how the rules governing the schwa in 'the' (which are affected by following vowels, when they're not affected by what word you're stressing), are not quite the same as the a/an rules. Of course I can't remember the slight differences, but they are there!

And yet I see this all the time. I think it even exists, inexplicably, in a great many style guides.

noooo! (i am sure you know this but) there is no 'h' to drop at the beginning of AITCH! it is 'AITCH'! not 'HAITCH'! this pisses me off to no end. and i HATE when people say 'haitch' when they're trying to be posh then look at you like you're scum when you pointedly say 'AITCH' back to them. my surname does not start with a 'a haitch', it starts with 'an aitch'. GRRR.

this taught me to just sit there quietly and stew when later in third grade the teacher told the class that mercury was hotter than venus. it's a wonder anybody in america learns anything ever.

Regional variation, motherfucker!

Maybe there are places where 'haitch' is considered correct and is used by everyone, but the south-east of England isn't one of those places. You hear both pronunciations, and the people who use the 'haitch' one ARE JUST FUCKING WRONG!

Newsreaders in NZ all say "an horrific accident" and "an historic event" but then revert back to "a" for every other h word.

I'm pretty sure - remembering vaguely - that the h-words where it's most correct to drop the h and precede them with 'an' are ones with French counterparts whose h is dropped in speech which can be preceded with l' rather than la or le. Therefore 'an hospital' (l'hôpital), but not 'an harp' (la harpe).

I've never heard people say 'haitch' when trying to sound posh, only when trying to sound common!

What are they? I thought it was exactly the same situation ('the' pronounced to rhyme with 'tea' before a vowel sound, e.g. the egg, the apple, the orange).

To me 'haitch' sounds like fingernails down the blackboard, but ultimately so what? A lot of the history-of-language stuff that gets trotted out in discussions like this can easily sound like naked Emperor Prejudice trying to bluff the rest of us into admiring his fine intellectual 'clothes'.

Before a phrase like 'horrific accident', for an indef article to be heard at all it would need to be pronounced 'ay'. Or changed to 'an'. The latter may be less complicating than the former, which would introduce the concept of two pronunciations for the same word with the same meaning, which sounds all kinds of alarms in the 'efficiency-anal' section of my brain.

'the-rhymes-with-tea' vs 'thə' - (the problem is i might be skewing it by thinking too hard, but) I think the difference was that while I would say 'a (y)universe' I'd also say 'thee (y)universe'. 'thə universe' is possible but oddly not as natural? I don't know if it's just me, though... it kind of feels like using the-rhymes-with-tea tends to add a 'y'-sound on the beginning of all words with an initial vowel.

Regional variation, motherfucker!

NO, this is fuck all to do with regional variation.

i sometimes wish 'AITCH' was wrong and 'HAITCH' was correct, because i really don't mind people dropping aitches and shit at all, but for some reason it really pisses me off when people are trying on airs and graces AND GETTING IT WRONG ARGH ARGH ARGH.

A TV comedian sending up this tendency in the 70s, called the British PM of the time 'Mister Hedward Eath'.

really? where do you come from? i'm not sure i've ever heard anyone say "thee (y)universe)," unless there was a pause before (y)universe, as though they were internally debating whether to say "universe" or "galaxy" or something, and thus they were extending the theeeeee. trying it out loud now, it seems like that syllable (the ee of "the") goes on artificially long.

Find me someone from Ireland that doesn't view "Aitch" as mockney clowning, then.

yes but people get exposed to things which are wrong. no? i grew up with ppl saying "i do go down the pub", "no she haven't", my all-time favourite "should/would of" etc etc, that doesn't make it right.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/haitch

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Haitch

Wikipedia says h is standard in hiberno-english, although not across the country.

Yes, but I think the question is whether the name of the letter is pronounced "haitch" or "aitch". In Ireland we all say "haitch". It's what we say. There are no airs or graces or even really class distinctions attached to it.

In Oz the haitch v aitch divide seems to be on sectarian lines. If you went to a Catholic primary school you're much more likely to say 'haitch' than otherwise.

This is v. interesting to me.

although not across the country.

Well, that is The Trouble, yes. :)

If there were a, say, bagel company called "H&H Bagels" you'd say "haitch and haitch bagels"?

"VEE-hickle" is a pretty common Southern US thing.

Yes, it should be "en-wye..2

"My harms are cold!"
"The harrows are going the wrong way"
"Your airs are so curly today"

But, but it's how we talk.

Nothing like listening to arguments about whether a certain indefinite article is pronounced "aye" or "uh" when reading scripts.

is your girl an archer or something??

Which we do, of course. H***n with a haitch!

the last time i tried archery i was trying to cut a notch on the end of an arrow with a brand-new swiss army knife and went WITH the grain instead of against it, slicing deeply and totally painlessly right through the skin of my left index finger

Right. I don't see what all the fuss is about. (I am pretending not to see Emsk's responses.)

H***n with a haitch
Farley with a feff
Lennon with a lell
Miller with a memm
Nesbitt with a nenn
Rogers with a rarr
Stevens with a sess
Williams with a wubbleyou
Xavier with a xex
Yancey with a yiye

?

The stress is on the first syllable 'hiss-torical'.

"a haitch"! Oh my lord.

his TOR ical.

Ayden, Watson, Addin, Odge, Ussey, White, Voges, Ogg, Bracken, Tait, Johnson.

-- DavidM (goodway...), February 20th, 2007.

um waht?! it's "an 'istorical".