Earlier this year I came to the realization that I say HTML or more importantly the letter H, a little differently to a lot of others out there.

My journey of self discovery started with the release of my new WordPress theme which was initially going to be called ‘Genesis: an HTML5 variant of Starkers’ but seeing as there was already a theme framework with a similar name, Elliot Jay Stocks and myself decided on ‘Starkers HTML5′ instead.

So my confusion lay in the use of ‘an HTML’ instead of ‘a HTML’. At first I thought it was a simple typo by Elliot but then it dawned on me (thanks to a little bit of Google searching) that not all people pronounce the letter H the same way I do… weird I know.

Aitch vs Haitch?

H is the eighth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. Its name in both British and American English is aitch, plural aitches, though it is also pronounced haitch if you’re cool like me.

There is plenty of information as to why there are two different pronunciations of the letter H but I’d personally like to thank the Catholics.

We conducted a survey of the television programme Wheel of Fortune over a period of some weeks, just to see how many of the participants were aitchers and how many were haitchers. The results: 40% aitched and 60% haitched… Australians from a wide variety of backgrounds are haitchers these days. –Ab(h)ominable (H)aitch, by Frederick Ludowyk

So is it an HTML or a HTML?

The rule of thumb is that you use ‘a’ before words that start with a consonant sound and ‘an’ before words that start with a vowel sound, so depending on how you pronounce the letter H will determine how you write it.

I personally say haitch instead of aitch and I understand that it’s most likely the lesser of the two alternatives but I’ve always been one to cheer for the underdog.