"Textspeak" ;

I can't bring myself to rhyme ate with debt - still use the Scottish pronunciation, though my English Granny kept to her native pronunciation. With predictive texting, I don't bother with text-speak and most of my younger relatives have also abandoned it.

What rhymes depends on one's accent. There are variations with lots of English sounds. People who say one is right and another wrong are wrong; both (or several) are right. Both 'ate' (as in gate) and 'et' as in fret are correct pronunciations of the same word.

Even the Oxford dictionaries are trying to be descriptive of the language now instead of prescriptive.

I say 'ate'. I think my mother says 'et'. Does is matter? Nope.

Scone seems to be pronounced either way all over the country.
I had a friend at school who pronounced the oo sound in 'tooth' as it is in 'took'. We all thought she was funny - but I've heard it pronounced that way since!

I've just read the spellchecker poem - very funny.

I do agree with gracesmum - reading texts full of these abbreviations is annoying - and hard work.

DH pronounces tooth like that too.

There is a Scone Palace in Scotland. That one is pronounced Scoon. There is a Culzean Castle in Scotland which has no z sound in its pronunciation.

Bags Your earlier example of all the right letters but in the wrong order (reminiscent of Eric Morecambe's response to Andre Previn ) is surely different from textspeak? I'm sure most people were able to read the jumbled words, whereas a lot of people have difficulties with textspeak.

Are the difficulties really all that bad? I mean, couldn't they be cured with a bit of looking up on Google or something?

Again, I'm just wondering. I don't actually get many text messages full of text speak but if I did, I'd just learn how to read it so that it wouldn't 'cause difficulties'.

Alternatively, if I really couldn't manage to learn, I'd ask who ever was sending the texts to spell things out for me. If it was a friend or family member they would. If it wasn't a friend or family member, I wouldn't want their texts anyhow!

So I'd delete them without reading them.

End of problem.

Is there something wrong with me? I am still trying to work out the phonetic difference between tooth and took. Or is it because of my Scots accent?

The oo in my tooth is the same as the oo in scoosh. Both are different, as I say them, from the oo in took, which is shorter.

DH is Welsh, so not (just) your Scottish accent.

Book as in buk? I know about Cullayne Castle and Scoon Palace though also Kirkoobrey, Kirkoddy and Penny Cook.

gracesmum I know I'm digressing a bit (a lot) but your comment about pronunciation reminded me of an article I read some time ago - re pronunciation of the word "tooth" - that amused me.

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/09/tim-dowling-new-dentist

Exactly!