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.

I’ve always talked to dc about first impressions. I used to say “pardon? I can’t understand without ts”. Now I’m lighthearted as they are teens. They can speak how they like with friends but in front of me I expect them to speak properly. Dropping ts isn’t about accent in this context, it’s about lazy speech and that’s not professional. I don’t think it’s about being snobbish but just aware how we all make an impression.

What do you think the teacher is going to do about it exactly?

I’d say leave it. I have a tendency to mimic accents (can’t help it, it’s horrific) and I started speaking ‘properly’ again when I left school. Both my kids voices change when they’re at school but I just inwardly cringe a little and let them get on with it. If it helps them to feel like they fit in, so be it.

@TheOtherAgentJohnson He doesn't. As pp, he gabbles. It's not being 'racist'.

This is telling, even though you've put 'posh' in inverted commas. Bath, grass, and castle are all indicator words for the trap-bath split, which is a linguistic vowel split which can be tracked very precisely on a map and runs directly through the English Midlands. It is only tangentially related to class in terms of the prestige form of English.

The glottal stops will be coming from somewhere. Have you heard the other children or teacher speak?

This is nothing to do with the teacher 😂
Voices and speech patterns adapt, I bet yours does too and you speak differently to different people. I live a long way from where I’m from and my DH always says when I’m with school friends the way I speak is more aligned to them whereas day to day I’ve picked up a more local twang.

There's no such thing as speaking properly. That would imply that anyone who talks differently to your preferred speech patterns is speaking improperly, which is a profoundly ignorant notion.

Perhaps your daughter is trying to carve out a different identity from you, out of embarrassment at your extremely provincial mentality and desperate social climbing.

Not necessarily. None of mine ever did.

I would just keep correcting her at home. As she grows up she will learn different registers for different audiences.

As a former teacher, I would say please do mention this to her teacher.

I would love when a parent came in and said something totally batshit - I'd be on tenterhooks waiting to get to the staffroom to tell everyone else. There was a sort of competition around who had the most batshit story and yours wouldn't be one of the top ones but it's a nice nugget of shit. You'd have made my day.

My friend's pathetic, racist dick of a husband specifically complained about Amol dropping his T's.

I think Amol is fantastic on University Challenge, much better than Paxman.

Oh and anyone who believes there's such a thing as talking 'properly' is an utter utter moron.

Good God, is there nothing that doesn't apparently fall under the umbrella of 'the teacher's responsibility'? I have heard it all now.

We moved to Yorkshire when my eldest was 5, the other three were under three and the youngest a tiny baby. My youngest DD was born in Yorkshire. My children spoke Yorkshire dialect at school but RP at home (both their DF and I have RP accents). Even my youngest doesn't have a Yorkshire accent, although my eldest (who is married to a Yorkshire girl) varies more than any of the others. I always tell them that they are bilingual, but the way they speak depends entirely on who they are talking to!

I'm from a very working-class Essex family, but for whatever reason apparently sounded 'posh' to some of my classmates in primary school and changed my accent to fit theirs. Went to a college where nobody else spoke like me, didn't fit in again and changed my accent to a more standard English. Now in my 30s I code switch according to who I'm talking to (like many people with my background who now have more middle-class jobs) and don't know which accent is the 'real me', which doesn't make me feel good about myself.
All very silly and unnecessary as it turns out there are loads of people, including company directors, in my field that speak in an estuary accent.

Be careful what you do with your daughter's identity. If she's changing her accent to fit in at school, and you don't like it, she'll just end up speaking differently at home to how she speaks there.

I’m sorry but you are wrong. There ARE right & wrong ways to pronounce words.

You imply I’m a ‘social climber’ but you are also completely off the mark with that comment.

I live in Ireland and have strong feelings about t sounds! I would correct. It’s not snobby, it’s quite simply incorrect.
Aside. I had to attend a work meeting where an English person pronounced the th sound as an f and an Irish person pronounced the same as either a hard t or a d depending on the word. Meeting filled with glottal stops. Even I found it difficult to follow, heaven help a non-native speaker!

I've never had any trouble understanding Amol. It's a weird coincidence that only racists seem to have that issue.

OP I sympathise! I hate to hear people speaking and omitting the 't' sound in the middle of a word. It really grates on me. But of course, one is termed 'snobbish' if you dare to suggest that perhaps a child should be encouraged to speak properly!

"One is termed 'snobbish'"

😂

So if I, as an Irish person, pronounce a word differently to you, who is 'right' and 'wrong'?

Is she in private school? It's obviously other children in her class who are probably speaking as their parents so, what would the teacher actually do? Completely blow those children's self esteem by going on and on about it to them? She probably does gently correct pronunciation but she cant dictate the accents of other children.

Well tbh we had speech and drama lessons at primary school and would've been told off if heard dropping t or f for th

I'm not sorry at all that you are wrong. You have painted yourself as a foolish, provincial, ill educated desperate social climber who will become a total embarrassment to your child if you keep doubling down on this nonsensical, farcical tripe.

I'm cringing with second hand embarrassment. Please, for the love of God, shut up.

Chill OP, all will be OK