Which accents have the H in “house” is pronounced?

Modern RP / Standard Southern British, West Country English, London / Estuary English, Multicultural London English, Birmingham / West Midlands English, Geordie / Tyneside English, Central Scottish English, Highland Scottish English, South Wales English, Northern Irish English, Cork English, East Irish English, Southern Appalachian English, New York City English, California English, Texas English, Boston / Eastern New England English, Chicago / Inland North English, Newfoundland English, Jamaican English / Patwa continuum, Bajan English, Queensland Australian English, New Zealand English, Toronto Canadian English, Johannesburg South African English, Delhi Indian English.

Which accents have H-dropping — “house” sounds like “ouse”?

Bristol / Southwest English, West Country English, London / Estuary English, Birmingham / West Midlands English, Scouse / Liverpool English, Mancunian English, South Yorkshire English, West Yorkshire English.

Which accents have H is variably dropped?

Bristol / Southwest English, West Country English, London / Estuary English, Birmingham / West Midlands English, Scouse / Liverpool English, Mancunian English, South Yorkshire English, West Yorkshire English, Jamaican English / Patwa continuum.

Pronunciation

H-Dropping: Do You Say “House” or “'Ouse”?

H-dropping covers most of England and Wales in working-class speech and is one of the most socially loaded features in British English. Scotland, Ireland, North America, Australia and New Zealand keep the H, which is why the feature reads as specifically English rather than generally informal.

The question, as everyone in the survey sees it

In relaxed speech, do you pronounce the H at the start of “house”?
Think about your normal conversation, not your most careful pronunciation.

Yes — I pronounce the H
No — it sounds like “ouse”
It varies
I cannot tell

Answer it yourself and see where you land on the map →

Which accents do what

Each accent profile in the survey has an expected answer to this question. Where a profile allows more than one answer, the region genuinely varies.

Yes — I pronounce the H

In these profiles, the H in “house” is pronounced.

No — it sounds like “ouse”

In these profiles, H-dropping — “house” sounds like “ouse”.

It varies

In these profiles, H is variably dropped.

Why this question is in the survey

Pronunciation questions carry more weight in the scoring than vocabulary questions do, because they are much harder to change deliberately. People move house and pick up new words; the vowel system learned in childhood tends to stay. Every answer is stored with a coarse map cell for the town you grew up in, and a region is coloured in once at least five people there have answered.

See the full question bank, the accent profiles these answers feed, or how the scoring works.