Re enunciating the 't's' in words?

[JimbosJetSet]

My accent isn't the best but I generally enunciate the t's at the end of my words. DH doesn't, never has done, and it's never bothered me before.

However, DD (3.5) is now dropping her t's, including the t at the end of her baby sister's name. It drives me crazy, I hate it, and I am constantly correcting her (and mostly being ignored).

DH thinks I'm being absolutely ridiculous to be constantly correcting her, and to get so wound up by it. AIBU and a snob? And if I try to let it go, is there any chance her enunciation will get better in time anyway (clutching at straws)?

Thanks!

I don't see what's particularly wrong. Why isn't Estuary English (or Essex, or any other accent where ts are dropped- I have Estuary English I think) a valid accent? What is wrong with having that accent?

Ill. Common. Stupid tablet.

yanbu, DH has an estuary accent and I can ignore it from him but DD went through a stage of talking mostly in my (RP) accent but without the t's which just sounded really wrong and drove me mad, thankfully she's started to grow out of it now.

I just gently corrected so for example when DD said 'please may i have some wa-er' I'd pass it to her saying 'here's you water' rather than telling her she wasn't saying it properly.

I clearly remember interviewing someone who was talking about their "arfrighus" and the general piss taking that followed after the interview had finished.
If you can't pronounce your words properly I'm sure as hell not going to let you near my clients.

Bank cashier in my local branch drove me so mad when she insisted on counting "twen-y, thir-y, for-t, fif-y......." every sodding week when I went to the bank for work. I now stand in the queue and invite others to go in front of me if I am inline to get her. I also go back later if she is the only one on the desks. If I see her just out in the street my teeth feel as if there is a nail going down a blackboard! I am sure she is a lovely lady, really!
No YANBU

Oh dropping 't's is a massive bone of contention in our house! DH & I were both brought up in the same town but my parents are from the west coast and his are east coast and him, his parents and whole family are total strangers to the t. I absolutely hate it.

He thinks I'm a snob because me & dd sound 'different' (we do to be fair, totally in the minority round here) but my dsd has come over to my side as she has to do public speaking at uni in the west coast and found other students struggled to understand her.

It's a valid dialect innit!

I come from a Suvvern taan nicknamed L. A. due to the dropped 't's and 'h's in its name :)

DD picks up on my broad saaf coast drawl and I do pull her up on it, wa_er being the most annoying!

Would you apply that to someone saying arthriy'is (Geordie) or arthraaatis (Yorkshire), Chipped?

Or would they be allowed to pronounce the word differently to its spelling?

Would you not want to hire someone with a strong Welsh accent, or go to a cashier because they had a strong Brummie accent? As long as you can understand them (and they are understandable, in both instances) then I don't get it.

Is anyone else sitting there, trying to work out where Jacks 'Suvvern taan' is?

and its only a valid dialect if its actually your dialect, you should hear the teenagers round here (Kent) who put on appalling copies of estuary accents to look hard when you know they actually come from Tunbridge Wells.

It's the glo--al stop.

There is no English accent that pronounces words as they are spelled, and these moral judgements on accents (lazy, fake etc.) are completely misplaced. You're free to dislike particular accents, but don't kid yourself that this kind of judgement is based on anything other than snobbery.

Dd corrects anyone who drops t's, including random strangers she engages with blush

I have no problem with accents, an accent with correct pronouncation sounds lovely.
An accent which means someone foreign would struggle to understand is a no go.

I live in Essex, plenty of people sound like Eastenders cast rejects, but plenty of people don't...

There's a difference between an accent, a dialect and sloppy speech. I do correct my children if I think they're being lazy - being able to communicate clearly will be a useful skill. Too many people on tv speak sloppily and children 'catch it'.
My personal bugbear is Joe Swash - 'Oim a celebry, ge- me ou- a 'ere', or the travel news lady on LBC - 'there's been an acc-ent on the M4'

More important than whether t's are dropped is whether someone is understandable. DS1 has been through phases of dropping the t sound from words, to an extent that he was dropping them where it was actually easier to say them. I pulled him up on it gently, but didn't waste too much breath on it. He enunciates words quite clearly, now he's stopped experimenting, even if the t is often missing.

And in my posh to some ears, common to others hybrid accent that's off-ten, rather than the orfen that a private school educated ex boyfriend insisted I should be saying.

I struggle to enunciate "peanuts" properly.....

Actually,nobodysbaby that's not true in this case. Londoners traditionally had a glottal stop, as did other areas close by, but when someone from Kettering or somewhere does so, it's just laziness, not an accent.

Can someone explain to me how they can tell the difference between a regional accent and sloppy speech? I've always been under the impression that glottal stops are part of regional accents. Perhaps I was wrong...

I'm not thick, I don't speak in a lazy way, and no one has ever had any difficulty understanding me but I find it almost impossible to pronounce the 't' s in certain words. eg butter, water etc. It's not sloppiness its my accent/regional dialect. When people round here say 'waTer' it sounds ridiculously out of place. Although we do pronounce the t in words like 'seventeen'.

"An accent which means someone foreign would struggle to understand is a no go."

That's Glaswegians out, then. And pretty much all of Northern Ireland.

I too would like to understand why every other accent is a valid accent or dialect, but Estuary English is 'sloppy speech'.

It's a valid accent, but that doesn't make it wrong for OP not to want her DD to acquire it.

Did you know that /catch it/ is phonetically identical to /cat shit/?

And most people don't enunciate the "t" in either phrase.

Also, a glottal stop uses more energy, and involves a more complex muscular movement, than production of a /t/. So "sloppy" and "lazy" is a pretty ridiculous description... in my opinion.

Whether Estuary English it's a valid accent or not is irrelevant. The question is whether a child should be encouraged to talk in a way that can be easily understood. Estuary accents can be perfectly clear, as could Cockney accents before them. My grandmother had a really clear Cockney accent. She did not however, talk fast or use glottal stops.