The le''er 'T'

I accept that language is dynamic and relish different accents. I don’t like lazy speech though, especially when it’s difficult to understand what people are talking about!

I keep hearing BBC R4 presenters using incorrect articles - “a apartment”; “a hotel”: it grates, I’m afraid.

HowVeryDareYou

I've heard say the words
Bottle
Water
twenty

all without T in the middle. Lazy and common.

Some time ago I had to call the water company and the chap who answered, when told the problem, said. "Wot, no war'er"

ExDancer my dh pointed this out during lockdown and it has grated ever since. Why does he have ter do it. ??‍♀️

Assuming all of our fathers had an occupation, then we're all working class.
Me, with my glottal stops, everyone like me, and everyone like all the rest of us.
One big, glorious melting pot of people; all equal, each as important as the next person.

Cannot agree that it has anything to do with so called 'class'.
I was brought up in a working class home if you base that assessment on my father's occupation, and have NEVER used the glottal stop. And never will.

It's just lazy speech or people trying to fit in by speaking the same as the majority of their friendship circle, or both.
Or, sadly, it can be to do with lazy parenting or teaching.

Personally, I just couldn't bear to hear myself saying le**er or similar.
I also have a hang up about written words. I write a column for my local paper every couple of months and when proof reading, find myself having to change "I have" into "I've" , or "cannot! into " can't" etc, as the way I was taught to write in school is still engraved on my brain, but sometimes I realise that my rants ( more often than not) just sound too stilted otherwise. At least it's still correct English!

MissAdventure

She is, quite "orphan"

Ah, bless Gilbert and Sullivan! "Orphan, often, only once....."

genius.com/Gilbert-and-sullivan-and-now-that-ive-introduced-myself-dialogue-annotated

???

She is, quite "orphan"

Sue Barker is not going to be at Wimbledon after this year. I don’t know who is going to replace her but I hope it’s not Alex Scott. There won’t be a T or a G in sight and I think she is already over exposed. I was trying to think about who would be a good replacement but bereft of ideas apart from Claire Balding who is also on TV quite a lot.

Asked everyone this morning to say cotton, or kitten or bottle, then put the word in a sentence. Singularly, most said the word with a t sound, but quite a few missed the t when they said those words in a sentence and several changed bottle into bockle.
I don’t mind regional variations, as long as people are happy to talk to me, but it’s true about spelling difficulties when words are said incorrectly.

I come from Leyton in East London and I absolutely hate it! My mother would always correct us if we slipped up. She and her parents also came from East London. It is no excuse to speak badly. I might have an East London accent, but I try to pronounce my words correctly and hate bad spelling and grammar. Especially you done, you was, etc. Would of AAAARGH!!! Apostrophes in the wrong place, etc. Mostly laziness, if not ignorance. I got taught properly at school, what is the excuse nowadays?

Love and appreciate the differences. Everyone sounds the same here, very boring.

Off topic a bit but have you noticed even the PM says 'ta' or 'ter' instead of 'to'?
"we're bringing in tax increases 'ta' fix this" for example.
So does Prince Charles - what's going on? Is it levelling down?

I used to say fings like firty free and a fird as a free year old. My big bruvvers teased the hell out of me until I stopped. It wasn’t an accent thing,

I have three big brothers now ?

I haven’t noticed ‘th’ being replaced by ‘f’ here

I worked in Durham with children wiv reading and spelling difficulties. Perhaps it hasn't got as far north as you yet, Georgesgran

Marmadoit ^How do children learn to spell if they never hear words pronounced properly?

It makes it even more difficult when children with reading difficulties don't read enough to become familiar with the written version... ?

I almost got to the stage when I pointed out that 'th' was another way to sell the /v/ and /th/ sounds...

I blame Eastenders for so much ‘lazy’ speech. My parents were both from London, which was obvious from the way they spoke, but it was just another dialect of our lovely English language, not ugly and lazy.

Witzend

I often think that TV/radio presenters must have been told to drop Ts on purpose, in order to sound more ‘ordinary’ - or less ‘posh’. I particularly suspect the Beeb - usually anxious to appeal to what they like to call ‘ordinary’ people. (i.e. not like them!)

I agree with this. One thing that has really changed in my lifetime. People used to pretend to be “posher” than they were - now they frequently pretend to be less posh!

“Going to shop” (shop as a noun”) started as “going to t’shop”(the shop) and the t appears to have been dropped.

In Standard English/RP the r is not pronounced in words like door or dart. That’s a regional thing.

(I used to lecture on topics such as this,)

Ok, I get you. here's my bugbear - whatever happened to the x is SIXTH? All I ever hear on tv nowadays is SICKTH.
Also bemoaning ...
The aspirated H ? WHICH is not the same as WITCH.
FIRST, EARTH and BURST all have different middle consonant sounds.
FATHER and PAPA do not end with the same consonant.

I guess what (WOT) I'm pointing out is that different people have different accents. what you are hearing is a more diverse group of people who are speaking publicly than ever before. Long may that continue.

Words containing double T such as cotton, mitten, kitten, bottle etc. are usually not pronounced with a hard T sound. I'm from the north and my daughter has married someone from the south and settled in Hertfordshire. She now says "boTToo" for bottle which I find every bit as jarring!

Sago

I had to take down somebodies name whilst working the other day, I wrote it down as KE Simpson!

I like this one.

My sons always struggled with their spellings because of dyslexia. How do children learn to spell if they never hear words pronounced properly? Fortunately mine grew up where even with the local accent most words 'sounded out' OK.

Where i live (Yorkshire) we still use the T
Gatwick to me is pronounced Gat wick -clear T used
I don’t understand how Cotton , mitten etc can be pronounced without the T to be honest.
We do though, not use the word “the” very much,I will be honest and say I’m going to’shop, not I’m going to the shop.
I honestly LOVE all accents ,it’s part our heritage and upbringing and I’m proud of my accent.

My friend called her son Mar'in. I pointed out that she wrote it as Martin, and now she very clearly calls him MarTTTin.

Stacey Dooley is one of the most dedicated and insightful journalists in the UK today; her documentary films are always interesting and thought provoking; I like her a lot. But she cannot/will not/does not pronounce the "t" in the middle of her words. And for me personally, it "jars" and spoils her otherwise excellent delivery and grates every time. Do I think it's a marker that she's uneducated? Absolutely not.

Reminds me of this …

youtu.be/r_b1Y-Rl_Uo