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

Well, to be fair I say "Brigh-un" - the way I wrote it is a very strong Brighton accent (heard at school). The accent is the reason I wouldn't have considered certain names (Arabella would be pronounced Awabewla for instance).

User I do sort of see the Danish woman's point (although she could have put it in a far nicer way). Even if she spoke English really well, there would have been a moment of blank panic when she met someone who used a completely unfamiliar form of dialect - I get it from time to time and I am English.

I can confirm that many of us hill folk in Yorkshire manage to pronounce H perfectly fine. I know many Harrys and none go by 'Arry.
We also have a clear distinction between Lara and Laura, I'm not sure where you found a problem with this but it's not a Yorkshire-wide issue by any means.

My Dm was welsh, she used to say "toof"

Eek I say Fear door.

Never realised until now.

Fear is two syllables in my accent.

Fee-uh

I thought the Welsh pronunciation of tooth was tuth.

yes, tooth is tuth with the 'u' sound like in pull or full. (depending on how you pronounce full or pul, of course).

For a lot of Scots Fear is one syllable.

Doesn't it make learning to read difficult if you don't know the difference between the and f?
I remember working with a child who's speech had never been corrected and he said "d" instead of "the". We used lots of exaggerated tongue in teeth to practise and his reading improved along with the speech.

Didnt affect dd.

I live in se London. I genuinely do not know the difference between 'th' and 'f' I thought they were both pronounced the same. Can anybody explain what the difference is?

Imustbemad - th is like f but with a bit more spitting

Whenever I hear people pronounce thr as frr I wonder if they have a speech impediment that prevents their mouths from being able to make the th sound.

I don't buy this business of

it's regional. They can't help it

Even when children were toddlers they managed to pronounce th with enough practice, so it can't be that hard for an adult to learn. Unless of course they do have a genuine bona fide speech impediment that prevents them from doing so.

when my children were toddlers

I can't pronounce my THs. Trust me, I have tried and tried for years. I just can't do it and it embarrasses the shit out of me.

My husband at my request has been trying to help me for 10 years. My sister can't pronounce them either but my children can and so can my other siblings. When I worked in the hospital I used to cringe when I had to call out certain names. There are quite a few words I have trouble pronouncing. When I was a kid my mum did take me to see if I could get some ST, but apparently I didn't need it. That was many years ago though.

These are very emotive and complicated issues. Some aspects are local accent which may or may not be liked by others and employers. Some are just bad grammar sometimes used. Even with her classes of 40 Geordie 6 years olds just after WII my mother used to make sure they learned who to say things properly in terms of grammar such as you were, not you was. She also ensured they said aitch not haitch. We do children no favours if we do not help them understand what matters to some people so they then can make choices about who they will speak once they are older.

@Imustbemad00 how do you say the word the? Or their? Or that?

Do you say I went to feh shops?

RP says three not free

Third not fird

Thing not fing

This is American but this is presumably what the OP means for the pronunciation of Theodore

m.youtube.com/watch?v=354Mp8MIRSQ

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

Rubbish.
I was poor and from a very deprived area with a very strong accent.
We all left school managing to pronounce th.

It's laziness.

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

Simon Pegg's Norf London t-shirt is brilliant

Have I been saying it wrong for years? It's 'Feardoor' isn't it? I can't even imagine saying "Thee-uh-door," it just sounds wrong.

anotherniceday

It's not laziness. Some people just can't say it the 'proper' way (even though there is no such thing). I don't care where you came from. We got over the making people lose their accents things years ago, perhaps you want to go back to that? I certainly don't. I'm proud of my accent and say "baff", rhyming "bear" with "fur" and eating a barm cake for my tea.

So if someone told you their name was Theodore and you had to writ it down Babycham how would you spell it? That's a genuine question.

Learning to read and spell must be very tricky if someone doesn't know the difference between the f and th sounds.

Imustbemad - for f my top teeth touch my bottom lip. For th/the/this/that my tongue moves to my top teeth and teeth don't touch lip.

But the 'th' in 'the' is different to in 'thirsty' which I pronounce 'firsty'. I honestly do not know, or have never heard anyone pronounce it any differently. If they do, my ears obviosly don't pick it up.

It's not laziness. Some people just can't say it the 'proper' way (even though there is no such thing)

There is a proper way: as it's spelled, with a th. Why is that so hard to comprehend for some people?

Are these people who claim not to be able to pronounce this syllable saying "fe, fey, fey're, fen, fat", instead of "the, they, they're, then, that"? Of course they're not! It's utter laziness.

@Imustbemad00 does this sound like firsty to you? m.youtube.com/watch?v=UWmLynmcTnI

Does this sound like fing? m.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZXG0b8iklE

Not a dig - just curious how it sounds to your ears