Twenny

[RaraRachael]

Since when did the second t in twenty disappear?

Three times over the past few days, I've heard reporters and presenters saying "twenny".

It's twenTy FFS.

‘T’ s often go missing though, as do ‘g’s.

and Firty

I know and expect it in words like "butter" etc but I've never heard twenny before.

That's weird because I can't imagine not saying the T in butter, but would always say twenny

Depends where you're from, dunnit.🤷

On the subject of numbers, free. Free legs on a tripod, innit.

Prolly instead of probably wtf is that all about

It’s not when so much as where. Absent tees and glottal stops have been common in many U.K. accents for ages.

Middle class people trying to sound “street” often do this.

It’s a regional / dialect thing. As someone from an area where every g is sounded strongly, I find the dropped g annoying. It’s SinGinG. Not sin(g)in’.

Where I live in Essex the letter T rarely makes an appearance. I once got charged “Fir’enn fir-y free” in Sainsbury’s.

It's immensely annoying and very American. I hear even so-called when spoken people using it and it sounds awful and lazy. It's different from the Cockney missing T.

I also hear "budder" which is even more annoying 😂

I heard a very annoying radio ad recently, describing how great it is to be an engineering apprentice at Ga'wick Airpor.

I’ve never really thought about it, but where I’m from you are more likely to hear twenny than twenty, I’m 50yo and it’s always been a thing.

My pet hate is Keckle rather than kettle, even has a child it rubbed the wrong way for me.

Exceptionally broad accents in my area would also say WAT-er rather than war-ter

It's been driving me bonkers. I listen to a lot of audio books. And as I mostly listen to memoirs (politicians, doctors, judges etc, all British, not American) it's a word that comes up a lot. "In October 2021 blah, blah". It's actually ruined the listening experience as I'm just waiting for the next one (I think Rory Stewart was particularly guilty of this). Yet the t is alive and well in all the other words and numbers they say. It's just poor old twenny that seems to have lost its way.

It’s all over the place and drives me mad. Several podcasts have been too annoying to listen to because of “twenny twenny five” and so on. Radio Four’s guilty of it too. Please make it stop!

Radio 4 isn't what it was! I sometimes play a game with myself (thankfully not a drinking game) where I make a mental note of how many "I was sat/stood" type constructions I hear in the course of a day on Radio 4. It's too many.

I’ve noticed this a lot on social media videos, usually youngish people with very posh accents/sound like they’re probably privately educated. Seem to substitute ‘t’ with a ‘d’ for a lot of words and almost sound Australian at times.

@Neededsomethingnew re Wat-er vs War-Ter- is that regional?

It’s always wat-er where I am from ( NE Scotland).

Edited to add: I would not be considered ‘broad’ accent-wise

Definitely wa-ter for me. It's the age old conundrum of some accents inserting an r such as warter in the barth and omitting it eg the fahmer has a caht 🤣

een and not in many words ,wa'er its water

Yep, it's an American tongue flap rather than the standard UK glottal stop.

We used to say 'twen'y' now it's an Americanised 'twenny'

Keckle and liccle instead of little drive me up the wall (silently in my own head of course) I also can’t stand ‘fink’ and ‘free’ instead of think and three.

Not one English person can pronounce 6th

So true!

I pronounce it sixt-th!