“Third, fourth, fifth, sikth, seventh...”

[TalkinAboutManetManet]

I’m a native English speaker, but not from the UK. I listen to a lot of British podcasts and radio programme, and the pronunciation of “sixth” without the “x” sound seems to be very common.

To me, it sounds very grating as I can hear it immediately. Like the wag some people say “axe” for “ask”.

Can anyone shed any light as to why it’s commonplace in the UK? Is it taught there? Is it considered correct?

If you say “sikth” and then “sixth”, can you hear the difference?

I cannot say six-th. I can say six.... Th.

It sounds ridiculous, like I'm drunk and pretending not to be or I've lost control of my tongue.

I live in London and have an Estuary accent. Raised in SE below London. This is also what I sound like when I try to say "sixth".

fith for fifth?

I'm a "fith" person. "Fifth" sounds awkward.

also drives me a bit wild when people say "corter" instead of "kwarter" when saying quarter. It is corter to five. No no no.

How do you say "queue" then? "Kweue?"

K-you
Not koo
Which would be the equivalent to corter. I've never heard anyone saying that though.

This is nowhere near as bad as "fift" instead of "fifth". In fact I'm currently 38+1 and praying that our baby isn't born on Friday. I can't cope with a lifetime of DH pronouncing her date of birth like that!

People seem to skate over a great many words to my ear.

The example a pp gave of people pronouncing th as f was one that I used to hear a lot when I lived in London, also putting a k sound on the end of the word something and ending up with somethink.

Immejiately, is another, used by almost every news reader and politician on television; I could go on.

Never heard anyone say corter instead of quarter though.

Saying "k-th" instead of "ks-th" is a common reduction of a hard-to-articulate consonant cluster. The OED's pronunciation transcription is /sɪk(s)θ/ - by bracketing the s they're giving both possibilities.

Ooh, you're good puddock

Another one I heard today is dee instead of day. "I'll get that to you by Fridee".

K-you
Not koo
Which would be the equivalent to corter. I've never heard anyone saying that though.

Yes 'k-you', so wouldn't "quarter" be 'k-yorter' not 'kwarter' ?

Ooh I just had to try it out
I normally know these without making the sound but has to question myself on this one if I could hear and/Or said the difference.
I would say Sikth but know there is a difference IYSWIM. Regional accent but not too strong

Thanks Puddock! I can stop trying to make siksth feel comfortable now. The OED has spoken!

Sickth grinds my gears too. It's wrong. Not regional. Wrong. The bloody continuity announcers are at it now.

Arks instead of ask is, I think, West Indies in origin so I would class that as a regional or dialect pronunciation

Quarter pronounced "corter" is quait posh.

Fith - PAH!

I have been sat here muttering to myself (as a postgraduate, with my fairly RP accent) and I can’t work out what the difference between them is Do they not just sound the same? The only thing I can think is that the ‘sickth’ pronunciation leaves out the middle ‘S’ sound that should be there. It should be more of a ‘sicksth’ sound to represent the X?

Can’t say it’s something I’ve ever noticed before.

I haven't noticed this. I'd pronounce the x version but will now be listening out for the k version. Also, I've now said them both aloud so much that I've lost my way!

That’s right @Bellatrix14. It’s the difference between ‘sick’ and ‘six’, with an added ‘th’ added.

Tbh, I pronounce it ‘sixth’ — I think most Irish people do and seem to experience no difficulty in pronouncing it! — but have never really registered other people’s pronunciation. It’s other (English) people who have said to me that I say ‘sixth’.