fourth, fifth, sicth

[Heritagehog]

Somebody please tell the BBC it’s siXth! Pronounced “sicksth” NOT “sicth”.
Grrr!

Thank you for listening.

I agree, I never understood when people corrected me when I say SIXth.

I’m Irish and have never met an English person who doesn’t say sicth instead of sixth. Mind you I say filum instead of film so who am I to talk.

Tell the BBC anything? Suggest something to them? We might as well bash our heads against brick walls.

Shouldn’t it therefore be
onth, twoth, threeth….

Dont get me started!

What about “two times” instead of “twice?”
Does anyone know the word twice anymore?

..and quarter pronounced as ‘corter’.

😡

Beat me to it

In my accent I literally cannot say anything other than sicth

My grandma says sixth and I can only say it when doing an impression of her (she's from London, had elocution lessons, worked the telephone exchange in the 50s)

I cannot make my voice make the sound in a sentence. Even trying to say it as OP describes as a standalone word I say six and then go back and add on th. Like it's two completely distinct syllables.

I’m a Canadian living in the UK and I’ve often wondered about this! I’d never heard anyone say “sicth “ until I moved here.

Yes, it’s never said here. I’ve always found it mysterious that my English friends find ‘sixth’ difficult to say. Living in England I began noticing ‘sickth ’ everywhere.

I haven't noticed sixth but 'corter' I have wondered about, like the MasterChef quarter finals pronunciation. I say the 'qu' quite clearly like 'kw' but guessed it must be pronounced more like the French style in some accents (e.g. 'un quart'). I know someone who says 'korn' for 'quorn' which is the same thing.

Sicth
Fith
Extra “R” as in Anna and Ron becomes Annarand Ron, drawing becomes Drawring, I saw it becomes I saw Rit.

The ‘intrusive’ or linking ‘r’. Again, not a thing for Irish people. We indicate the distinction between the adjacent vowels in ‘Africa and India’ or ‘Anna and Ron’ or ‘law and order’ or ‘drawing’ with a very slight glottal stop.

Or thrice.

I'm afraid I can't hear the difference between sixth and sicth! (SE England)

Intrusive r because two vowels one after another are difficult to pronounce. French avoid two vowels together sometimes too e.g. mon amie instead of ma amie.

The sth sound is just extremely difficult for me to pronounce so I suppose I say sicth or at least it might sound a bit more like sicth than sicsth because the s is so quick.

I emailed the BBC to ask them to tell Matt Tebutt on Saturday Kitchen to stop gabbling and to stop slurping after every sentence.
They replied saying that he is allowed to wear whatever he likes!

Me neither. I'm sitting here saying "sixth" which may well sound like sicth. I'm not sure!

Why did people start saying ‘brought’ for ‘bought’? As in ‘ I brought a new car’. Surely brought is the past tense of ‘bring’. Can anyone explain how or why this has crept in ?

When you say sixth properly there is an ‘s’ sound in the middle of the word. With ‘sicth’ there isn’t. It’s a subtle difference but once you notice it, you can never un-notice!!

I can't make the words 'gabble' or 'slurp' into anything which might sound like an article of clothing.

I mentioned the unsatisfactory way in which they now put the cricket scores up on Text. I'll be astonished if I ever receive an answer.

I'll have to trust you on that. The only way I can get a 's' sound in the middle of sixth doesn't sound like any pronunciation I've ever heard.

Maybe it's going extinct like fortnight is.

But some people go overboard and say 'thrice', which makes my teeth itch.

I don't think it's crept in. I think it's been around for a long time. It happens the other way round, too. Some folk say 'bought' when it should be 'brought'.

It comes of allowing primary age children to have their dinners before they've conjugated 4 tenses each of the verbs 'to bring' and 'to buy' absolutely perfectly.

Six is ‘six’ with a ‘th’ tacked on.’Sicth’ is ‘Sick’ with ‘th’ added. It’s not a subtle difference at all.