Dropping her T’s

[Stick0rTwist]

My daughter has just gone into Yr1 and is an articulate child, relatively smart with a love for reading.

We moved her to a new school in the new year and have noticed since then she has started dropping her t’s when saying many of her words, like water, better, bottle, little etc.

This gets corrected consistently at home as although we don’t speak the queens English (and are not snobbish by any stretch of the imagination) we would prefer her to speak properly and not get into bad habits speech wise.

Over the summer holidays she was fine, but I’ve noticed in the two days she’s been back her speech has reverted back.

So here’s the AIBU - would I be unreasonable to mention this to her teacher? Or would I sound like a massive snob 🙈

Sounds dramatic but it’s even making me want to move her school again as this was not a problem at her old school at all. Its been a direct result of moving school as it started the week we moved.

Not in the slightest. I can't imagine why you would think that based on anything I've said.

My original comment that you first replied to (where you talked about phonics) was a response to the OP'S original post. I wanted to clarify my point was not about me teaching phonics (and I'd still like the OP to answer my question!).

‘Owt and nowt are Yorkshire slang’

No, they’re not slang, they’re dialect. There’s a difference. They’re not just Yorkshire either.

Children switch accents for home and school. Don't worry about it.

Cillian Murphy moved his family out of London because the kids’ accents were posh.

“They were sort of at that age where they were pre-teens and [had] very posh English accents and I wasn’t appreciating that too much! So we decided to come back.”

https://www.thenational.scot/news/20072707.cillian-murphy-reveals-left-london-change-kids-posh-english-acccents

I think it's pretty clear she (and others) means "my daughter is clearly among the lower class oiks, ugh"

My point was neither was right but if a word has an R in it then it's right to flipping well say it in my opinion!

@AnPiscin , not only is there anti-Irishness but there is anti-[certain parts of GB]ness too.
There's a reference to 'Yorkshire accent' on this thread. The MNers from Yorkshire aren't up in arms about it.

I would not mention it to the teacher. Maybe it's just a phase and it will pass?

Where l live lots of people don't say their "Th's" and instead say them as "F's" e.g. Feo rather than Theo, Fick rather than thick. It's doubly annoying for me as lm not even from here!

Ooh interesting! Because I really dislike when people pronounce the W in drawing! I'm trying to think how I say it. I think "dror-ing", rather than "drawring". It's "dror-wing" that makes me wince.

No but us Lancastrians are pissed off that some of our Lancastrian dialect words (and accents) are referred to as being Yorkshire. 😡

Pronunciation can have variations and that’s normal with any accent. Missing letters and substituting words isn’t pronunciation, it’s incorrect. E.g nowt is not the same as nothing. Int isn’t the same as is not or in the. They are different words altogether. I have no issues about whether my child says bath as bath or Ba-h- th - they’re the same words pronounced differently.

OP, if you are snobby, I am right there with you. I would feel the same way you do.

@HundredMilesAnHour I don't blame you.
@NewHere83 , I've not heard that one.
@Obeseandashamed , same here. Something like Lie-bry for Library IMO is sloppy. I don't like additional letters being added to words either.
@Stick0rTwist , I'd listen to how the teacher speaks and then decide what to do.

In 2011, I visited a primary school in the German-speaking area of Switzerland. Just as a British classroom might display a poster of the alphabet with the sounds each letter represents (A is for apple, etc), my Swiss colleague's classroom had posters that showed the position of tongue, lips and teeth needed to pronounce sounds. Children do not necessarily pick this up.

I can recall showing teenagers (on Teesside) how to put the tip of the tongue to the roof of the mouth, just behind the top teeth, to say 'water' and to touch it to the top teeth to pronounce the definite article as 'the'. I think they were touching their front teeth to the lower lip, giving 'v' instead.

Exactly so.

@CrostaDiPizza must have a very small life if, despite being so educated (as indicated by her accent, apparently), she struggles this much to understand regional variations in pronunciation.

Either that or it's tediously performative incomprehension, that she imagines makes her look clever (rather than a pompous wazzock).

Does that even make sense? Why would there be a "sher" in motor?

I don't know, I struggle with Brummie accents

@RubySquid , I think it's the way she's written it phonetically that doesn't work. If think the T is aspirated, not said as sh.

I don’t really understand what you mean either by moe-sher @AnPiscin? I think it’s a feature of some Irish accents (eg D4 and Ross O’Carroll Kelly’s ‘Roysh here, Roysh now’). Definitely not all accents use the sound, though t does usually sound softer in Irish accents than in many English accents. I don’t say moe-sher for motor personally though, and I’m Irish. So it depends where you are.

Well there are a number of people on the thread who agree with her so I think you're the one projecting here.

For your delectation, the beautiful Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal. If you listen to first few minutes you'll see that Andrew says 'Andrew Scosh' and Paul says 'Ideal first daysh' (date). It's not quite a 'sh' sound but it's hard to represent. It's one of the things that actors tend to get wrong when they're trying to put on an Irish accent. https://share.google/DhhaVEPPcUzgGBNiq

@AnPiscin , he aspirates the T. He doesn't say Scosh.
Thanks for the link.

I've said a number of times that I know the sh doesn't represent the sound.

Aspirated 't' everywhere. Also very funny and MN relevant: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZJx-MoQI1CA