In my day, when I were a nipper, where I come from, etc. etc. the number of people who pronounced the letter H as "haytch" was small. All right-speaking folk knew it was "aytch". So who'd've thunk the day would come when I too became a haytcher ?!
The reason is simply that "aytch" is not quickly enough and easily enough understood over the phone, where we spend so much of our semi-automaton lives these days, repeating ad nauseam our personal letters and numbers. Aytch can sound too close to "eight".
I related this life detail to the woman from M&S Bank this morning, as I robotically spelled out my postcode for her, complete with a penultimate "haytch" and she said: "Ooh, I do that too, never used to, think it's for the same reason as you." The ghost of a journalist in me said, Aha, me-plus-one-other-person-changing-our-verbal-habits-equals-an-important-new-social-trend.
The reason is simply that "aytch" is not quickly enough and easily enough understood over the phone, where we spend so much of our semi-automaton lives these days, repeating ad nauseam our personal letters and numbers. Aytch can sound too close to "eight".
I related this life detail to the woman from M&S Bank this morning, as I robotically spelled out my postcode for her, complete with a penultimate "haytch" and she said: "Ooh, I do that too, never used to, think it's for the same reason as you." The ghost of a journalist in me said, Aha, me-plus-one-other-person-changing-our-verbal-habits-equals-an-important-new-social-trend.
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