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'm sorry, I know I should RTFT, but I'm having a quick glance when I should probably already be asleep before before bed, and TimeForAnotherNameChange's comment really made me swallow all those t's that I never pronounce. A glottal stop (or, as I say, "glo'al" ) is part of some regional accents, and it's not stopped me attending three very good universities up to PhD level, nor has it marked me as "uncaring", as far as I can tell.

Accents are funny things, though, and they do change, even in young adulthood, so OP, I wouldn't worry about a 3 year old! My first three years at university had as much of an impact on my accent as my first 18 years in rural England, so now I speak with a mostly RP accent but just can't break myself of saying "wa'er".

interested - there was a programme about ancient egypt by a professor recently, who spoke in an accent with very obvious glottal stops. I don't know what her viewing figures were, but to get to that level, presumably most people thought she sounded normal?!

No one should decide that Treacle! I bet your speech is FABULOUS.

Bit of an aside, but does anyone else remember that thread where you had to say how you 'heard' other posters' posts? Someone said that they imagined scottishmummy sounded like a Scottish robot.

Or indeed living in Alex Salmond's "Sco-unt"

Huh.

I do find it amazing what people hear and don't. DH has a few 'r' sounds I genuinely cannot hear. I know there are different sounds there, but I cannot process them. And some people can't distinguish 'r' for 'l'.

Likewise, didn't know people couldn't hear the 'l' in Salmond's 'Scotland'.

LRD exactly!

Also, one of those three universities involved an interview, in which my glo'al stop probably rang out loud and clear. It's really not the end of the world!

(Also, yes to comments on the previous page r.e. accents being things you can slip in and out of, not absolutely rigid - almost as a nervous tic I get more RP when I'm, say, presenting a paper, and have a much stronger accent / use a lot more regional colloquialisms when speaking to my family etc. But I think the glottal stop is the one thing I do constantly. That and being incapable of differentiating between a 'f' and a 'th' sound but I blame my massive front teeth).

If you can make yourself understood, good for you. No need to bring class or regional pride into it.

Like a lot of Londoners, I tend to talk quickly. However, living in NZ, I make a conscious effort not to do this so that I can be understood. For the same reason, I don't use glottal stops. I don't see this as affected, or as a betrayal of my roots.

"Exactly" r.e. the ancient Egypt programme - I'm not typing fast enough!

I don't change my accent for other people, I just talk to them really slowly and loudly ad if they're a bit thick, that always does the trick *

• not really, but that's what some people have done to me in the past

toad - yes, but some of the onus is on people to try to understand each other. Not everyone is as able to modify their accent as others, and they shouldn't be belittled for it IMO.

I am completely incomprehensible to some Americans. Not their fault or mine, but even when I modify my accent towards theirs, it's no good. It doesn't mean my accent is wrong or their understanding is wrong, it's just we need to make allowances. We don't all live in tiny villages any more. Unless you're content never to move far from home, you have to accept we live in a world where we meet people who're not exactly like us.

I went to a lecture once which touched on why different regional accents have evolved the way they have. Things like industry, population density, even climate, all had an impact.

Wish I still had the notes it was fascinating.

My th sounds are all f. I also say dorf instead of dwarf. It drives DP nuts. I remember talking about films we watched and mentioning Thor (which I pronounced four). He's saying no it's called I am 4, me saying no it's just Thor. He was very confused.

DS is 3.5 and out of nowhere has just started dropping his t's. It's waer, bu_er etc. he always said them fine before...

I can't help but be reminded of

I'm no expert, but I would imagine that regional accents may affect spelling in young children when they don't know what the actual (written) word is. When you're repeating sounds at a young age then you spell as you hear.

However a lot of spellings in English do not make sense. DD is learning to read and is already questioning spellings.

I've only ever met one adult whose spelling was affected by his regional accent (he said). Surely, by the time you're an adult (or a long time before) , you know how to spell the word, you just pronounce it in your regional accent.

As I said, I'm no expert. I probably haven't explained this well at all.

My dds loike as in like all the bloody time.

With rich brummy tones. I am brummy too but this drives me nuts.

DS1 does this. I do and don't - I mostly pronounce Ts but am prone to use of the glottal stop as well. However, while I realise I'm in a losing battle simply because we're in Australia now, I will not put up with the severe eliding of syllables that DS1 comes up with - to the extent that he's almost unintelligible at times. "Wadder" is bad, but not as bad as "wa'er" - although of course "water" is what we're aiming for.

It got so bad recently that I had a chat with him about the letter T and how upset it must get that he refuses to pronounce it - imagine if DS1's name was pronounced wrong all the time, how would he feel? Well the answer is he doesn't like it - so if he's being particularly awful with his lost Ts, then I call him by a mispronunciation of his name, and he gets the association immediately and re-says the word to include the Ts. But he's 6 - it would be a bit harder for a 3.5yo to understand, maybe.

Anyone else remember the time when the BBC subtitled news segments featuring (what they perceived to be) strong Scottish accents? Like a group of children from Glasgow...
Glottal stops are every bit as prevalent in Scotland as in England, btw.
People form opinions about others based on lots of things, including speech. An accent that is noticeably different from your own is not necessarily wrong or better, it's just different.

I had one the other day who told me I was a liar when I said I was registered with TPS, which I am. When I said to him 'how dare you ring me and then call me a liar?' he got all arsey and said I was being abusive

I loathe them. I have zero sympathy for anyone who does this job, even 'legitimate' sales calls are essentially a way of conning people out of money, pressurising them into spending money on something they don't really need.

gah! posted on wrong thread! don't know how I did that

Sometimes it stands out though. I was watching the documentary about British Arways last night and the training manager who was talking about letting go one of the trainees for not putting on her lipstick often enough and not always using 'premium language' spoke in perfect RP except he consistently dropped the 't' in British. It really jarred.

I have an Estuary English accent, however I was always reminded (nagged) by my DM to pronounce my 'T's. I was often sneered at at school for sounding 'posh' and that has followed through into adulthood.

But I do think that my 'posh' (haha) accent has helped me out in interviews over the years, so I am grateful to my mum for that.

This is definitely one of my pet hates.

DS does very well a lot of the time, and can put on a lovely Northern accent when taking off his friends - which is nice as he knows how he should be speaking and how to wind me up!

My least favourite at the moment is INNIT which has started cropping up in his sentences since he's started school - and LIKE every other word. I try not to use "like" too much these days as I know how awful it is to hear him say it ALL of the time!

I don't think dropped ts is an accent, it happens everywhere. It's lazy speech and I do think it's important to at least be able to speak properly, even if you choose not to sometimes.

I grew up in Cumbria and can remember being told off for dropping ts (especially the say I cam home from school and excitedly told my dad that I'd got eigh-y eigh percent in a physics exam. Instead of saying well done he told me to speak properly!)

notamonkeysuncle I presume you are being ironic with your first sentence?!?

I know my own accent, and I know that the lack of Ts are a part of it. Unless 100% of people from my area are all too lazy to speak properly? I can't even begin to write down how we say things, its not as extreme a dropped T as the accents referred to elsewhere in the thread, but in some words (specifically those where the 't' sound is followed by 'er') I find it incredibly difficult to pronounce the T sound, and if I force myself to do it, it sounds totally out of place with my accent, it sounds like someone trying to copy an accent they've heard on TV. Which I suppose it it.