It's 'to' (oo) not 'ter' (er)

[ThatsMyStapler]

Ooh, it makes me cringe

It's 'to' (oo) not 'ter' (er)
I went TO the shop
Not
I went TER the shop

(I'm ready for the YABU....)

YABabitU. To me, to with an oo sounds like too, which has a different meaning. Also it's an accent issue whether the shorter to sounds like ter or an elided oo and all accents are valid. I think sounding the full to in your example would sound stilted and formal even if you didn't hear it as too (which would make it simply wrong).

YABVU.

In many dialects, it IS pronounced 'ter.' Variety is the spice of life and all that.

YABU.

Visit the Black Country. You won't understand a thing. It's bostin bab.

I think it might because I'm on the south of England, and it sounds lazy (sorry, I'm sounding like the Mumsnetter I hate) like dropping ts or fs for ths

Don't read Harry Potter: not only does Hagrid say it, but it's written that way!

"You'd be mad ter try an' rob it, Harry."

TBH in Yorkshire it is neither.

It's t' - the o/oo or otherwise isn't pronounced at all generally.

• we went t' work
• are you going t' shops?

to with the /oo/ sound is 'too'

• as in too many, too much, we went there too.

Round here some people say 'I went shop' (no 'to' at all). It makes my brain hurt.

'Ter' is very north west, a kind of extension of the traditional t' that seems to be creeping in.
YA a little U to be looking down on a regional quirk!

Well, as someone from the south of England you presumably always drop your 'r's (except when you put an extra one in the middle of drawing) and can't pronounce the 'ch' at the end of loch properly. and head tilt

Dow be yampy our wench.

Ever lived near London or in Essex? Everything is ter apart from the inimitable "I'm going bog" 🙄

So do you pronounce every word exactly as per the OED? Every aitch & diphthong?

Our interns at work don't seem to use the word to at all.
I'm going Ibiza/Nandos etc
It pains me & every so often if it's a very long conversation I have to interrupt

Languages evolve. My daughter speaks a different English to me.
Her children will speak a different English.

YABU.
It's t'er. Oh, and that "the" is completely unnecessary.

"I'm off t'er shops."
I'm off t'er bed."

See? No the needed! [smile

Well technically A lot of what you hear in fast, connected speech is the schwa.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa

It's the bolded sound in about or tak e n for example.
So its sometimes neither 'too' or 'ter'.

*disclaimer - regional accents use ter, and use of the schwa depends on it not being before a vowel, or its position in a sentence.

if you're Scottish it's tae- I'm guan tae the shops. I quite like it. Although I say too, and get frustrated at my English children's quite correct, but annoying pronunciation of words e.g. bowl and ball sound the same, moor and more, where we're and were all sounds the same too. When I hear them my heart aches a little.

Yer being quite unreasonable.

I as taught tu and too at primary school to help with grammar. For example I'm going into (tu) town, are you wanting to come too?

Maybe it's just me

But I sometimes catch myself doing it, and I hate it

But I don't hate 'should of/have', because it's language evolving... But I think I should hate it

(I accept I am U)

I'm with you OP but I also can't stand should of instead of should have!
I haven't been brought up to be well spoken but it irritates the life out of me when people don't talk nicely!
Regional accents permitted. Obviously