To hate the modern trend of replacing ‘th’ with ‘v’ or ‘f’?

[Guiltridden12345]

It’s everywhere. All age groups from middle age downwards (not heard in older people yet). My child’s teachers (primary and secondary), presenters on tv and radio, my kids trying to adopt it from their mates. Not cockney or accent related (ie like a Nottingham accent that does replace th with f a lot), just pan regional sloppy speech that seems to have caught on. I fink, I fort, bruvver, uvver. Why?

I know.
I was going to call it ignorant myself but then thought it seemed even bigger than that but couldn't think of the right word for it.

Cromwellian maybe 😅

I'm curious why the middle-class English habit of dropping Rs from words like "letter" and "better" and inserting Rs where there originally were none (e.g. in the "vodka and tonic" example upthread) isn't seen as laziness or as a speech impediment. Why is only regional or otherwise marginalised accents that are stigmatised in this way?

Our priest does it, and cannot pronounce his 'th' at all. It's a speech impediment.

I sometimes think that presenters - perhaps particularly BBC ones - who wouldn’t otherwise do it - are told to drop Ts and do whatever else (bruvver etc.) in order to sound un-posh. Or at least un-RP, in case they put ‘ordinary people’ as they like to call us, off.

A recent pet loathing is that bloke with black hair and beard, who looks to me like a son of Beelzebub - on some ad for buying or selling cars - ‘You’re in the driving seat now, Bri’ain!’ 🤮.

Another Londoner in Norfolk here. I can pronounce 'th' as OP would consider correct and proper, but sometimes the lazy and sloppy (!!!) pronunciation comes out, often when I'm talking to other Londoners or people I'm very familiar with.

DH went to quite a posh boarding school and also spent time in the Netherlands as a child, the resulting accent being a combination of posh RP and Dutch.

Now we've been together almost ten years I often find we switch between each other's accents, so I sometimes lose my glottal stop entirely, and I heard him pronounce 'corner' as 'cawnah' in a full on London accent the other day

I love these subtle nuances, accents are part of heritage and I'd hate to seem them standardised away. I also teach my children words like "bishy barnabee" for ladybird as is the traditional Norfolk dialect (spellings of this one seem to vary)

Judging people for speaking in a way that reflects their regional heritage is just plain snobbery. Speaking in RP doesn't make anyone better than anyone else

@potniatheron ill change my wording so..., They can but they don't. The amount of times I've been abroad moreso when I was a lot younger, and have been asked to say THE or THEM "for the laugh" is ridiculous.

@Boomshock Im Irish and believe me noone thinks its lovely the way people say DAT, DOSE, not sure who you you are talking about. And what? Invade countries, what a stupid and ignorant comment. Nothing to do with the Irish language, unless you're from the west of Ireland, noone speaks irish. Maybe youre gone from Ireland too long to understand that :)

Err this wasn’t me, this was a large international business saying my colleague needed to speak ‘properly’. They are the words they used. You might not like it but I’m afraid that is reality in some professions. And remains so. It’s like a poorly drafted letter - there are certain situations which require correct grammar and syntax- same for speech.

and at risk of repetition, I am NOT talking about regional accents. My kids have a fairly neutral accent here as do their peers. They come home from school with an affected accent that sounds part London, part yoof, part just sloppy. It’s an affectation. It’s not local and it’s not natural to them. Perhaps it’s the tiktok effect. Whatever it is, I encourage my kids to speak ‘properly’ at home, and however else they want to outside it, so they can adapt to the corporate/professional world if they choose. My local accent was very broad growing up and at all my interviews I was so glad for the years and years my parents shouted ‘thoughT not thaw!!’ etc at me.

I get you op, it's not about accents it's about lazy speaking.
I can easily see the difference in the way DD and her peers speak compared to my nephew and his peers. We're all from the same area but educated differently. I've never heard any of DDs friends use the wrong letters but with my nephew it's constant.
It's makes me cringe and I hate it, it's a personal thing and I know most others probably don't feel the same but it's a pet hate for me.

I'm Irish and have only ever got good comments about it, from lots of different nationalities.

It's a stupid and ignorant comment to say that the English invaded? 😂😂😂 Wow

And I'm not talking about people speaking Irish, I'm talking about how Irish has influenced the way we speak English, which it has in many ways.

I'm still in Ireland btw, you clearly know nothing about the history or the language.

I grew up in Nottingham and my mum never let us get away with this, and I’m glad she didn’t. We spoke properly even though we grew up wiv nuffink. We didn’t have any speech impediments or auditory issues, so there was no excuse not to master the sounds, and I’m glad we did.

come home from school with an affected accent that sounds part London, part yoof, part just sloppy. It’s an affectation. It’s not local and it’s not natural to them. Perhaps it’s the tiktok effect

Eastenders was partly blamed for the 'trend' some years ago. Threads here if you search.

Surely you can see though that it’s insulting to call a key feature of someone’s accent ‘lazy’ or ‘sloppy’ though?

You’re basically saying ‘I don’t care how those peasants talk, but I expect better from others’.

Language and accents change and evolve. Accents from today in area won’t be the same as they were a few hundred years ago.

Essentially, it’s not going to change.

My advice to you would be to stop letting it bother you. By voicing it you’re either insulting people, making yourself seem uninformed/uneducated on language, or opening yourself up to ridicule.

Nothing good will come of it, nothing is going to change, so deep breath and let it go

OK, but why would the Irish accent drive you nuts...as opposed to the racist idiots asking you to say things for a laugh? That's like those bigoted idiots who make fun of Mandarin speakers for using a retroflex /r/.

Interestingly I read recently that American English is a lot closer to how English English was pronounced 400-odd years ago, when we did pronounce the r in letter, better etc.

That is absolutely fascinating. Thank you.

It is quite common for people with dyslexia to really struggle with some of these audio sounds. Especially th versus f. My dad (in his 70s) does this, and still has trauma from being beaten with a cut down tyre by teachers telling him he was thick because he couldn't help it.

This. It goes with certain accents. The year 1 phonics screening even allows for it although it goes back way further than that.

@potniatheron
The Irish accent doesn't drive me nuts, I like my Irish accent, v proud of it as it happens, its the dis and dose drives me mad and because so many people say it, i had to listen to comments over the years asking me to say this and those, and the number 3, tree instead of three, that was another one that seem to fascinate non irish people, go on say three..and then surprised when i could pronounce it...Did you never get that over the years? It annoys me, same way people saying Dort, instead of the Dart.. Out of interest, do you say dis and dat....:)

I've been asked to say three or thirty tree etc. many times. Doesn't bother me at all. It's not offensive. I like that people can tell I'm Irish by how I speak. Met a few people in the UK with Caribbean roots who instantly can tell I'm Irish and we bonded straight away over the way we talk.

The reason so many say Diss and Doze is because it's influenced by the Irish language (as explained) and that carried on through the generations. As a population, most of us don't want to or feel the need to perfect our pronunciation just so it matches the language of the invaders. and it will never ever happen. Dis is how the Irish talk, and we're still going to talk like that in 100 years time, and 200 and so on, Perhaps we will pick up influences from others but there will always, always be a bit of Irish influence in our way of speaking English, and dat's a good ting!

"dropping Rs" isn't middle class. It's standard pronunciation in non rhotic accents. And has been for centuries.
Non rhotic accents= vowel + R, the R isn't pronounced.

Your other example is called intrusive R and is also nothing to do with class, but with the "clumsiness" (phonetically speaking) of having two schwas side by side, which, if pronounced without intrusive R would have a tiny pause, almost like a mini glottal stop between them.

In the centuries before the Norman Conquest, there was a noble (Thengel) in East Kent whose village was called Thengelsham, and recorded as such in charters. But then there came the Norman scribes for Domesday, and quelle horreur, they could not hear the "th" sound. Which is why that thengel's buckle is now recorded as the Finglesham buckle. It ain't no new slang, it's a millenium old.

Got to say I completely agree. It is incredible how many people have switched from saying 'th' correctly in favour of adopting the 'f' sound instead. My four stepsons were brought up to pronounce th correctly but now in adulthood, 3 of them say 'fink' instead of think, and they're teaching their kids the same habit. It's all over the country, not just the south east. And the other thing I've noticed, much to my irritation, is when you comment about it, most people say they haven't even noticed (they're completely deaf to the difference). Yet, I hear it ALL the time. Teachers, tv and radio presenters, friends and neighbours, work colleagues. It is indeed a speech impediment but a deliberate and lazy one in most cases. If it is a genuine physical inability to put the tip of your tongue against the edge of your top teeth (yep, it really is that simple) that doesn't explain why the habit has increased exponentially in the last 10 years. I hate it and I wish I didn't notice or care but for some reason I do.

Modern?! I remember people doing this in the 70s!

Not a modern trend- occurs in many accents and dialects. Also in people with mild speech impairments, and in many people who speak English as a second language.