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.

Yeah, there is. It's called pronunciation and enunciation. If a word has two T's, the correct pronunciation is to say them.

Poor kid has been made to move schools, she's changed the way she talks to fit in because she is probably feeling very vulnerable/unsure of herself in new surroundings (even if she is a 'confident and happy child') and her mum is pulling her up about it. She needs support right now not a verbal ear bashing. Give your head a wobble and think about how she might be feeling and stop thinking about yourself all the time and your ridiculous embarrassment about how she is speaking.

Not read every post but I agree with others that she’s trying to fit in and copying others’ speech. It’s reminded me how I had a phase of copying the accents from Grange Hill in the 70s; probably stuck out like a sore thumb in Lancashire 😂

I very much doubt her teacher is teaching her to drop her t’s, most likely she’s picking it up when the teacher is not paying attention. Moving school is ridiculous.

If a word has an "r" at the end, e.g "water" is the correct pronounciation it 'wohtawh', like the queen, or 'wohtur', like my rough as guts BIL? Because I dunno, based on your reasoning, a lot of extremely well educated and rich English people are mispronunciating a lot of English words.... "Pass the buttawh, Alistawh, and ask Petawh to ohdawh the cawh".

@Thursdayschild2025 I agree with you 💯

And yet in RP, and to an extent the other non-rhotic dialects of English, you routinely swallow/delete 'r' sounds in certain positions, eg in 'hard' and 'better'.

Whereas in the phrase 'better eggs', the 'r' is pronounced ('linking r' -- see also the insertion of an 'intrusive r' into phrases like 'AfricaR and India', 'lawR and order' etc).

It's far more complicated than 'correct English enunciates all sounds'. It doesn't. It deletes some and inserts others which aren't present.

Huh

Totally agree, the child is almost certainly picking it up from her peers so what does OP want the teacher do, follow the kids round all day correcting them

I'm London-born of working class 1x Welsh & 1x EMidlands parents. I spoke accentless English till I went to Secondary ("Grammar") School, when I felt obliged to adopt a Norf Lundn accent to fit in with the other pupils.
Your child will need "registers" to fit in with their peer group.

However, at home, if I were you, I would continue always to correct pronunciation - merely repeating the word properly enunciated. Not by shaming your child's speech.
I would, perhaps, have joined the "All Dialects Are Equally Valid" school of thought, which was becoming prominent when I trained as a teacher in 70s, UNTIL one pupil (Elizabeth, 7, SheBu '74) wrote in her Weekend News Book:- "Narss night (spelling of 'night' provided by me) I wen ...".

That was the end, for me, of acceptance of "All Registers Are Equal". Elizabeth's spoken register was interfering with her learning of spelling.
"Narss" = Last.

She was trying to write: "Last night I went ...".
Elizabeth taught me that clear enunciation is important. It's not about snobbery or class. Tho' it is about Class, in a way, it's about the duty of all teachers to try to ensure their pupils get the best chances out of their education and are not discriminated against because of their social background. If they can't speak clearly or spell accurately they are, most probably, going to be held back all their working lives. Employers judge. They judge and they select.

Why did you move her in the first place? You can’t move schools for things like this. You are going to make her very unsettled.

War-er ?!
Sorry but that isn’t right! Where did the r in the middle come from?!
wart-err is much closer!

The poster knows it isn’t right, that was entirely her point!

Dropping the Ts is nothing, imagine my horror having to watch my sweet little children develop Glaswegian accents when they went to school! Now they sound like their dad and I’m getting ganged up on in my own home.

In all seriousness OP I do think you’re being silly. Don’t move her schools that’s insane, correct her at home if you must, but don’t move her.

War-er ?! Sorry but that isn’t right! Where did the r in the middle come from?!*
I have absolutely, no idea, it probably came from copying my mates. I was only 9!! No wonder my mum kept bollocking me about it!!
Same as I did with my kids when they used to say things like 'should of' or 'could of'!!

It could be worse - my mother told me that when I came back from my first day at primary school, I would continually refer to the lavatory as the shithouse & would not stop doing it. My brother started in the same year & it morphed into every swear word known to man. It was mixing with the Rural Poor that did it. Anyway, it wore off quite quickly.

I was browsing MN and the reason I clicked on this one was to actually check if it was as ridiculous and pompous as it sounded and it was!
The teacher will be dying to roll her eyes at such a silly criticism!
Unless the school is some kind of posh “finishing school” (whatever that is!) elocution isn’t on the curriculum!

owt and nowt are 100% slang, please tell me you’re joking when you say they’re dialect

Haha 🤣 that’s hilarious and def a lot more embarrassing than dropping a t or two!

Have you not heard how a lot of well known successful business people or well educated type speak? especially when saying "sumthink", "sumthin", "anythink", "anythin" etc.....

We lived in the US for a while, and several people, adults as well as children, seemed surprised to discover that they had an accent.
I taught DD to read before she started school (a year later than in the U.K.), and one reason I did it was because I was worried she’d be confused by the differences in pronunciation between American and British English (XH and I have fairly RP accents, though I have short As because I come from the East Midlands).
Now we’re back in the U.K. I don’t say her way of pronouncing something is wrong, but I do sometimes tell her how I’d pronounce a word she’s only heard spoken by an American.

Wow, this thread is a lot! Children generally code switch, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Speech and Drama lessons, maybe if you’re worried about her speech? Also, how much is she hearing you speak at home? Do you eat meals at the table together and discuss things?

No, pp is correct. They’re dialect words common to several northern dialects.

Shouldn’t it be dropping her Ts, not T’s?
I’m afraid I’m that person.

My DS is age 5 just gone into year 1 we experienced this last year too.

Like you I’d prefer he didn’t and we correct it at home!

But I did put YABU mainly due to contemplating raising it with the school or moving school because of it!

Children will pick up habits and language from others. It happens everywhere!