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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To correct ds when he fails to pronounce the t in water, butter etc?

96 replies

PollyParanoia · 03/09/2009 13:26

I just don't know if I'm a snob or a pedant or completely reasonable to find ds aged 5 and his missing Ts in the middle of words really irritating. Typical sentence will be:
"I've lost the bu'on in the wa'er, I'll le'er ge'it for me as she's be'er at swimming."
I correct him and I don't know if that's really bad for his self-expression and a one-way ticket to a therapist in 20 years time. And I don't know whether I'm correcting him because it's sounds common or because it's incorrect. I tell myself that it's because he won't learn to spell properly as he won't be able to sound out words (or le'ers), but am worried I do it in fact because I speak with an RP accent and he goes to an inner city school.
And I don't know whether he does it because it's an "accent" or whether he's just v lazy (which he has always been, speech wise). It might be that it's actually part of a lovely London regional accent that should be nurtured like Geordie.
Am I like horrible parents who used to pay for elocution lessons?

OP posts:
Habbibu · 03/09/2009 15:59

Morris, that's really my take - children can be "bilingual" or perhaps biglossial in more than one register of speech. I get quite Scouse when I go home if I'm in a pub or something, or where it's just useful to fit in. Back in Scotland my accent is just plain odd - Northern English with a rhotic twist.

Scots often find the English funny for "dropping their r's" - but no-one calls that lazy.

MorrisZapp · 03/09/2009 16:00

lol funnyname.

me too - two lagers and I'm an extra from Trainspotting

Habbibu · 03/09/2009 16:00

x-posts with stealth!

NadiaWadia · 03/09/2009 16:00

YANBU. I hate this too.

Seems to be spreading all over country, not just a regional Estuary/London thing anymore.

For instance Lauren Laverne (presents The Culture Show amongst others) very nice girl with a lovely Yorkshire? accent, but she drops horrible glottal stops all over the place. Why do people do this????

Habbibu · 03/09/2009 16:01

not biglossia - bilectal?

WhereYouLeftIt · 03/09/2009 16:20

YANBU, I do it to (so it can't be unreasonable, can it ). It is not the local accent just plain laziness on the part of DS, particularly with the word 'twenty'. Grrr! And I don't see how it can be snobbish to correct one's () DCs, given that my I sound like the love-child of Rab C. Nesbitt and Minnie Mouse. On a good day.

more · 03/09/2009 16:39

I am sorry what is DCs?

CantThinkofFunnyName · 03/09/2009 16:40

Darling Children...

Original poster
PollyParanoia · 03/09/2009 16:48

I thought it was a called a glottal stop but wasn't sure. Ironic, given that ds wouldn't be able to say the word glottal as spelt...

OP posts:
CowWatcher · 03/09/2009 16:57

Polly, I live in france & my daughter speaks both languages. My husband & I are both pretty RP so the ony other english she hears is from the telly (usually cbeebies) and she does this 't' dropping thing too. I always correct her. But she has realised that it irritates me and as a result does it more. Now she has started watching french telly more, I'm hoping that she'll forget about it and copy our accent more.

Goodness only knows what horrid errors she's picking up in French, but I can't really hear French accents yet, so she can get away with it!

Morloth · 03/09/2009 17:08

MorrisZapp "But kids, like adults, need to be able to switch according to who they're speaking to."

And that is the trick really isn't it? Here in posho SW London, most people don't clock that I am Australian because I tend to sound like everyone around me.

In Australia out and about and at work, I do sound Australian, but am often mistaken for English/having an accent.

However with my family and close friends, it slows right down into the full Aussie drawl.

I think most people do this don't they? So I don't think there is any harm in correcting your kid to speak properly in your presence and to know that there is a time and a place.

MorrisZapp · 03/09/2009 17:23

Now picturing Morloth in full Kath and Kim mode

Morloth · 03/09/2009 17:26

Kath & Kim, cuts just a little too close to the bone.

Very cringeworthy. One of my sisters even lives in a similar McMansion .

junglist1 · 03/09/2009 19:38

I'm with eyeballs on this one (gets crushed under the weight of YANBUS)

fluffles · 03/09/2009 19:48

absolutely agree with those who say we can have two accents. i grew up in edinburgh with two accents - one was 'miss jean brodie' the other 'trainspotting'

ThingOne · 03/09/2009 20:32

My three year old is back in a phase of "bu'er" and "le'er". Drives me insane.

TiredBlueEyes · 03/09/2009 21:53

I too have an Edinburgh 'bendy voice'. They're the best

Lived in manchester for a decade now and have mostly lost my accent. Now and again someone asks if I'm Irish. but got threatened by some lads with an iron bar recently. Astonished myself, and them, by becoming very angry, very loud and VERY scottish. One yelled 'I think she's from Glasgow' and they all ran off. A triumph!

Mysteriously my 3yr old says 'gel' and I'm forever saying 'the girrul? What did the girl do?' i think correcting is good. They'll say what they like when you're not around but its a useful lifeskill to have a 'formal' voice.

MillyR · 03/09/2009 22:29

I think that it is useful to have a formal voice (or at least a toned down regional accent), as it makes it easier to communicate with people from other regions and other English speaking places.

A few posters have been saying that they want their children to speak formally at home, and the parents speak RP with the children. That seems odd. They are not at work, so it suggests that some people have no regional accent and can only speak RP. I think that is a bit of a shame. Having a regional accent is an important part of a person's identity.

Pikelit · 04/09/2009 01:09

I regularly told my dcs to stop speaking Estuary. They were quite amused by my requests and would promptly go into Little Lord Fauntleroy "I say, old chap, could you pass a fellow the buttttter?" but actually, they did grow up to speak "properly". Neither show the slightest evidence of undermined confidence.

clemette · 04/09/2009 05:26

Don't correct, just model. If they ask for wa'er then say here us your water. It is not lazy, at five they are learning about the differences between people/situations/language and it must be confusing to be told that the language they hear all day is "wrong". As others have said it us perfectly normal forbpeople go speak differently in different sutuations - I gave a friend who has an RP accent all the time, unless she is with her family when she us broad Scots.
I would say relax about it and choose other battles. The research proves that accent is mostly determined by a child's peers and if you are constantly undermining their peer group you are setting up a conflict that a five year old will struggle to understand.

stealthsquiggle · 04/09/2009 09:23

MillyR - it's only "a shame" if RP (or some approximation of it) isn't how the parents speak naturally.

I don't speak "formally" to my DC - I speak the way I always do. What I am saying is that should they feel a need to develop a particular accent to fit in at school, that's fine, but when it amounts (in my view) to mispronunciation I will correct it at home.

LackaDAISYcal · 04/09/2009 09:35

I do it mo my DS too and think it's just lazyness rather than a regional thing...I have a Fife accent, but still pronounce all the letters, and my DH has a Leeds accent and is the same.

gunna drives me demented, as does open-t door and DS1 saying it's a big 'un instead of big one and dint instead of didn't sets my teeth on edge!

I think it's possible to speak well with a regional accent without people thinking you are putting on airs and graces.

fwiw I was sent to elocution lessons for a bad lisp when I was at primary school and I'm really glad of it as it lessened the amount of teasing I used to get at school for it.....and although it made my accent slightly more polished than some of my peers I was never teased for that.

MillyR · 04/09/2009 11:48

Stealthsquiggle - obviously it is a matter of personal taste, but I do think it is a shame if a person does not have a regional accent. I very much enjoy my own traditions and cultures, and love to see those of people from other countries and areas. I like to see those traditions continuing as it is part of the heritage and identity of English people.

'RP' doesn't conect you to a local community, local tradition or geographical location. I have had friends who were brought up in India and people brought up in Scotland who speak 'RP.' RP has no real identity to it at all; it just sounds institutional.

Original poster
PollyParanoia · 04/09/2009 13:25

Interestingly enough, ds just got his year 1 high frequency words and when he read the word "water" he did so with a lovely t sound, so maybe it will pass when he learns to spell more words.
There have been enough yanbu on here for me to avoid self-loathing and the scattering of yabu has made me think I'll lay off the continual correcting and just speak clearly myself. Result all round.

OP posts:
Habbibu · 04/09/2009 15:20

But it's NOT "dropping" the t, and not laziness - it's articulating it in the glottis, rather than the mouth. None of that means you have to like it, obviously - I don't, but I think clemette is right - model, don't "correct".