A mum has divided opinion with her take on how to pronounce the letter 'H' - with hundreds of people weighing in.
Posted anonymously to Mumsnet.com the mum asked why some people pronounce it 'Aitch' while others say 'Haitch'.
She said: "So we say Ay. Bee. Sea. Dee. Ee. Eff. Jee. Aitch. Except we don't. We say 'Haitch'. Why?
"We make the aitch have its own letter as the sound of the word for it
"We don't do that with any other letter. Why H?
"We don't say 'wubbleyew' do we, It's 'doubleyew'?
"I don't understand it."
The seemingly innocuous question sparked fierce debate and while some claimed it was down to regional dialect, some mums and dads claimed it was down education.
One said: "Is it a regional dialect thing? Some people say aitch, others say Haitch. I think this is why it's important to teach our children phonics."
Another said: "I judge people who say haitch. It is like nails down a blackboard."
Another said: "I just can't get over that people can't understand that people from different areas may pronounce words differently."
Another said: " I say Aitch. Because that’s how it’s supposed to be pronounced.
Haitch really winds me up!"
Another disagreed, adding: "Haitch is a legitimate variation. I tend to err toward haitch, aitch sounds weird to me."
While some were firmly in one camp or another, others were less bothered.
One mum said: "I say aitch, and used to cringe when people said haitch. Then my son started saying haitch and I just realised it wasn’t worth bothering about. And I just didn’t want to criticise him over it, so I didn’t, and also stopped cringing about how other people said it. Much more relaxing and much nicer really. It doesn’t matter at all."
Another added: "I can't actually believe there are six pages [of comments] on such a non-issue. Why the hell are people so bloody judgemental about regional dialects?
"I've never even thought this was a thing. There are better hills to die on than one about pronunciation. God MN is weird."
