AIBU to think my son's name isn't that hard to pronounce?

[SailorByTheSea]

Or is this an acceptable pronunciation!?

We live in London, so 'fear' is 1 syllable (this is relevant!)

My son is called Theodore... You know, 3 syllables, 'The-uh-door'?

All he gets is 'fear-door' please tell me that this isn't an acceptable pronunciation? It makes me regret his name massively

Efan

Birfday

Th-your tongue goes between your teeth and sticks out a bit
F-your top teeth rest on your bottom lip
I can understand people not making the effort to pronounce them correctly (am an Essex girl and sometimes lapse myself) but surely you can hear the difference?!

I'd go for Theo for now OP. That or get his friends round to watch Alvin and the chipmunks.

Wrt Frances. I pronounce it Frahnces and feel very awkward around my northern friend's dd. I usually call her Fran

I used to converse with an online friend.
We were chatting about baby names and she mentioned she really liked the name Woody but couldn't use it because where she lived everyone would call him Widdy.
It made me laugh but I forgot to ask where she was from

My DH says Paul and pool the same. He once said he was going to Poole. Odd I thought as its about a 6 hour drive. Turns out he meant Paull which is an hour tops. Bold and bald are the same for him too. But the clincher is "something" pronounced as "samfink". "Nothing" is "naffink". It's easy to see why as MIL does it too. My mum insisted on what she considered to be correct speech, so even though we sounded northern we avoided "ee bah gum" stereotypes. Apparently when she did teacher training, elocution classes were compulsory for those with non RP accents Regional speech was considered common and uneducated

It's not just London. I'm born and bred Cardiff and the area I live in, the majority of people pronounce th as F. It winds me up something rotten!

This is so funny because whenever people say "f" not "th" I always assume they must be actually embarrassed about speaking so badly, but it turns out maybe they can't hear it?! I'm in SE London btw and most people I know can say "th" correctly. I guess I will need to make a big effort with DS!

"This is so funny because whenever people say "f" not "th" I always assume they must be actually embarrassed about speaking so badly"

Do you feel the same about people who shorten the A in bath?

This thread is reminding me of that E17 video, Stay Another Day, when they are singing in the snow in their big coats.

They all sing 'Don't FINK I can take the pain....'

But a short a is acceptable regional pronounciation.
F instead of th is wrong even if it is a common dialect

Is it a class thing, by and large? With the middles and uppers pronouncing the TH and the workers going for F? I grew up in a working class fiercely aspirational household and the F would have been 'corrected'.

SALTS, is there a structural reason why people say V instead of TH? BIL says vere instead of there. And what about lisps (TH instead of S), is that structural or lack of practise?

DD has a friend called Theo who says F for TH, TH for S and W for R. It's quite a feat.

This thread is baffling. How can anyone think feardoor and Theodore, or even more baffling, Paul and pool, sound the same?

France and Francis are pronounced with a hard a imo. It's just the regional accent that would change it to Frarnce or Frarncis. Replacing the f and th sound is regional as well surely. I was under the impression for ages that my friends daughter was called Arifa as that's how they pronounced it. I've only recently found out that it's actually Aretha

F instead of th is also an acceptable regional pronunciation

My son has the same name and we sometimes shorten it to Ted.
But I'm guessing you wanted to use his whole name, otherwise you'd have shortened it already!

There's clearly a line of thought that vowels indicate regionality whereas there's a judgement about consonants. Interesting stuff.

F instead of th is wrong even if it is a common dialect

Would you say that to an Irish person saying thirty three?

My DD has a cc in her name pronounced K (think Jessica/Rebecca) by EVERYONE except MIL who is from Liverpool - so we get a weird sounding chhhh- like Scottish loch - but more of a throat/phlegm clearing sound every time she says her name!

Irritates me (every single time), but hey ho - that is how she speaks and I would not dream of telling her she is wrong... you just need to get used to it - people will pronounce names how the heck they want to.

SALTS, is there a structural reason why people say V instead of TH? BIL says vere instead of there. And what about lisps (TH instead of S), is that structural or lack of practise? I've got to drive to Wales now so haven't time to explain. Someone will be along soon.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th-fronting

On th as f - interesting

swphonetics.com/articulation/accents/sbe/ This was interesting too, about sociolects etc

Ok -try again-not meaning or wanting to cause offence!
Surely f for th not standard English whereas short vowel sounds are?

is not

What is baffling about this thread is that so many people cannot understand that regional dialects are legitimate.
The screening out was by the aspiring middle classes desperate to be accepted by the upper classes.
It didn't work. They continued to be sneered at by their 'betters' much in the way they are sneering at others on this thread.

Anyone who flinches at the sound of someone else's accent is an idiot.
Interestingly this hysteria over dialect and accent is pretty much reserved for the SE and Estuary ones on MN. I expect the ones from further north, west,east and south are quaint and/or authentic?

Accent and name threads really bring out the vulgarity on MN. This has both aspects and certainly doesn't disappoint.

Agree MrsDv, some of the comments on here are nothing short of snotty nosed!
As a Londoner there are some regional accents that I hate the sound of, but I have kept that to myself.

My husband uses the 'f' for 'th'.

My full name ends with a 'tha'. I shorten it so dh had never really had to use my full name.

Knowing he uses the f sound I asked him how he pronounced my full name and it made my name sound awful. Think Agatha becoming Agufuh.....

After a bit of practice he was able to say my name properly during the vows.

I can only imagine how annoying it is to hear feardoor on a daily basis, it would really bug me.

On the flip side, when you change it around a bit and use f instead of th it sounds even more dramatic,

I punched his figh with my thist, I fought we were thriends but we are thoes. fank you.

I live in n wales where 'f' instead of 'th' is definitely not part of the accent. However, both my kids have to be reminded to say 'th' and even dh appears to have lost th he ability to pronounce it. Wonder if it'll die out.